The question of shooting by sportsmen in the neighbourhood of Shanghai has again been raised by the Japanese, and residents are warned against a practice which, however permissible under other conditions is certainly not now. The presence of guerillas around Shanghai, and by no means very far from it, creates a situation in which the discharge of firearms is likely to be attended by grave dangers, and it is highly undesirable that anything should be done likely to provoke incidents or involve others in danger. People who by their course' of conduct cause unfortunate incidents cannot very well expect much sympathy from their officials. Game shooting in the present circumstances undoubtedly comes under that heading, and indulgence in it demonstrates the completest lack of consideration, Should these warnings be ignored, it may become necessary for the authorities to devise some other means of dealing with the matter. It would be interesting to know when ther the authorities in control of the outside areas have issued game licences this year as was the practice in the past. If they have they might consider their suspension for the time being. If on the other hand they have issued none, obviously those of last year have expired. Should that be the case a remedy seems to be ready to hand, and that could very well take the form of prosecuting the offenders for breach of the law. It would be a matter of regret if some such action were eventually adopted, but if these so-called sportsmen refuse to obey what after all is a very proper warning some method ought to be found of inducing them to mend their behaviour. Apart from that it will do very great harm if the surrounding country is not shot over for a while. In past years it was being very severely treated and the quantity of game available showed signs of considerable diminution. A rest of a year or so may very well improve the shooting when it again becomes possible, for a few more years to come, so that from all points of view the sporting thing to do is to heed the Japanese requests in this connection.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.