Though the Japanese authorities preserved complete silence over the week-end concerning the bombing outrages, etc, which had occurred, the representations made to the tenor of the complaints made unanticipated. The charge that the municipal authorities are either inefficient or lacking in earnestness and ability to meet the Japanese demands for the suppression of subversive elements, has already been made too frequently to expect that it would be absent from the representations which it was thought the Japanese authorities would make. The Council is now requested to take appropriate measures for the' eradication of anti-Japanese elements, and to exercise rigid control of anti-Japanese newspapers, and, as an essential means towards such ends, it is asked to increase the number of Japanese members of the Shanghai Municipal Police Force, and raise their status end authority, and also to place Japanese in controlling positions in all the important organs of the Municipal Council's service. The opposition of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce appear. and the Special Citizens' Federation to the formation of the Shanghai Citizens' Federation is also complained of and the Council is requested to take such steps so that these bodies shall retract their statements and publish their retraction in the press, and hereafter be kept under the rigid surveillance of the Municipal Council. These demands have been amplified to some extent by ut-terences of Japanese spokesmen at the Press Conference on Tuesday, from which it is clear that the suggested control of the Press, another of the Japanese demands, included foreign newspapers, and the suggestion implied by the spokesman's answer to questions is that if the Council did not act to the satisfaction of the Japanese in this respect there was a possibility of the Japanese taking the initiative themselves. The seriousness of the situation created by the Japanese demands cannot be over-estimated, for they amount to a request that the Shanghai Municipal Council shall hand its authority over to Japanese control, and that to all intents and purposes the International Settlement of Shanghai shall become a Japanese dominated city.
The charges that the Municipal Council has been lax in the performance of its duties has been refuted so often that it seems to be a work of supererogation again to undertake the task. Nevertheless it has to be emphasized, as strongly as the written word permits, that those charges are inaccurate and amount to a misrepresentation of the whole situation for which it is difficult to perceive any justification whatever. Operating in a greatly increased population whose loyalty to the Chinese Government was so strikingly demonstrated by the display of the national flag over the New Year's holidays, whose dislike of the Japanese has been intensified by all that has happened around Shanghai, the municipal authorities have managed to preserve the peace in a manner that only the very captious can criticize. The fact that so few anti-Japanese outrages have occurred is directly attributable to the excellent work that has been done, and when the potential dangers of the situation are taken fully into account it must be clear to the reasonably-minded that everything is being done which can be, and being done efficiently. The Japanese demands will, of course, be carefully studied, but it is by no means certain that even if the Municipal Council made the concessions required the situation would be improved. On the contrary there is a very grave danger that matters would be worsened. The maintenance by the Municipal Council of its neutrality has been the best possible safeguard for peace south of the Soochow Creek, but control of its activities by Japanese officials would divest it of that neutrality in the eyes of the Chinese resident here and might tend to aggravate what is even now an exceptionally difficult position. There is the real danger. The Chinese are looking to the Municipal Council, upon which there is sufficient Japanese representation to secure adequate liaison with the Japanese military, naval and diplomatic authorities, for that protection "which it is in duty bound to afford them. It is in their trust of the Council as at present constituted that the best guarantee of peace and good order is to be found, and a continuance of the present system is the only method by which that tranquillity can be preserved.
How the Council can deal with the Chinese bodies of which the Japanese complain remains to be investigated, and it is to be hoped that some solution satisfactory to the Chinese and the Japanese alike can be found. With regard to the suggestion that the Council, should seek to secure control of the foreign language press other considerations arise. For the most part those organs are under the extraterritorial jurisdiction of their respective nationalities, and interference with them may bring about complications which it is highly desirable to avoid. That they have been critical of Japanese policy is undeniable, but it i is safe to assert that few if any have been [guilty of conduct which might be said to be anti-Japanese per se. Interference with them may amount to a further denial of that respect for foreign interests which the Japanese have. so frequently asserted they desire to pay, and may bring about just those very complications which everyone is straining every nerve to avoid. This is clear, under the provisions of the Order-in-Council British papers guilty of conduct after reaching the age of 70 years. He was the recognized leader of the conservative bloc in tendencies in which event the between conservative and liberal justices will swing more in favour of his policies, and, perhaps. give greater facilities for the upholding been maintained or denied by the marrow majority of one on the bench has given much cause for anxiety, it being felt that if the judicial opinion so evenly divided upon any such point, great doubt must still remain as to the correctness of such decisions; It has always been consistently denied that politics ever swayed the minds of the Supreme Court judges, but the pronouncements regarding the Court to which American leaders have given utterance in the past suggests that they are by no means certain that that is the case. It is further indicated by the justice. The appointment of Senator Hugo L. Black to suc-during the air-raids of August 14, and immediately following the preface is a short sketch of the editor's life, in which the writer says "Surely a prophet has gone from among us, and we shall greatly miss the stimulus of his pen and voice as we attempt to carry on through fire and flame." The year book contains. a valuable diary of the principal events in China during the period covered by the volume, and a by no means uninteresting description of China's national life, written by @ number of writers, who present in the sum an adequate picture of China and her various activities. done, while as a reference book, be missing from the library of any writer on China who desires to secure a proper understanding of conditions in this part of the world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.