"Offental Affairs" for December gives its readers double measure in. letterpress and Mustration, Its narrative of the Shanghai crisis—"Shanghal in Ferment"—is brought up to the end of November and in an informative article on Japanese strategy, featuring as the cinema posters say the dramatic landing at Chapoo, Blowing tribute is paid to the valour of the Chinese defender The Chinese on the Shanghai front proved and capable they were put. Into and. ordered to. hold. entrenched position. 1 may be doubted whether troops of any other nation Would have shown up tuny better in operations In which the command of the air and. preponderance of artillery and mechanized equipment rested with the enemy.
Unfortunately the writer has to conclude that staff work and leadership were not equal to the occasion, as the frequent changes of command suggested. In addition to the survey of the Shanghai front Mr, W. V, Pennell contributes fan account of the military operations in North China, The journal examines the problem of anti-British feeling in Japan. It quite accurately exposes the misapprehension spread in Japan by unwarranted versions of certain incidents in Shanghai, Tt is probably correct in judging that certain points of detail have escaped the attention of the British public but it seems to be stretching the argument too far when it contends that the lack of precise information regarding the actual initiation of hostilities in Tientsin and Shanghai has misled British opinion, The broad issues have more im. portance than so restricted an aspect of the crisis, Those broad issues have been generally perceived and to suggest that the British public fs fundamentally ill-instructed Is to indulge in self-deception which cannot be sustained:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.