General Hata, the new Japanese commander-{nchlet's declaration that the Japanese Army ready and willing to ce-operate in the rehabilitation of the areas in Central China which have been devastated in the Sino-Japan-fosse hostilities, provided a government exists which is friendly to Japan end opposed to com-Imunism is set up, can be taken as a gesture fin the right direction. That is about all. For it will be many years before the average Chinese {forgets that the. parties responsible for the devastation were the Japanese themselves—not the Communists, or any other party, however much they might have desired the sine end Had they had the power to accomplish it, [General Hata's "if" is a big one, and it is to be doubted whether there are any Chinese with the requisite amount of sincerity to please the Japanese who' can at the present moment consent to it. Ca-operation, as the word implies, needs mutual action by at least two parties. That postulates a certain amount of yielding on both sides. And this is just where the Japanese proposals for ce-operation would appear to be weakest; for they indicate no willingness for yielding on the part of Japan but, on the contrary, an insistence on concessions by the [Chinese.' The cost of peace on either side in this "undeclared war" must be enormous, and is, therefore, useless. to. suggest conditions which can only be acceptable to the Chinese Jgovernment when it is beaten—which is not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.