the. Lurline, earlier in the week, is to bring' to Shanghai a bevy. of distinguished globe-trotters of the modern sort. Under severe discipline these victims of the Kindly solicitude of the arbiters of travel, pay butterfly visits to the ports and happy havens in their ocean path. For a few hours they descend on Shanghai which, fortunately, is well trained in dealing with birds of passage will therefore treat them indly. Shanghai prides itself on laying toward the casual visitor nothing of that vulgar Importunity to be met with in ess important and more artless ports. Yet sometimes it may be felt that this diffidence is overdone. There are other kinds of birds of passage. The visit to /Shanghai of experts from Europe. and America, intent on discover. ing something of the mystery of China, isa commonplace in routine. China has warmly. welcomed such men. There have been and are still, investigators who are endeavouring to assist in the solution of public health, economic, engineering, rural and administrative problems. They may be technically birds of passage but they are free of the mild reproach usually attaching' {to the fraternity, Padgett MP. may rest in his Victorian grave. but his soul marches on and haunts the landing stages of the Whangpoo. Birds of passage on whom that soul seems to have breathed its erratic perversity fare occasionally to be detec-Jed and it would be pleasant. to know the results of their! adventures here. When the wisdom of Geneva is sought} China and missions individual pundits come here to ive their best, there is reason to be thankful. The health experts, the road-engineers, the economists and the orga deserve credit and little criticism. Everyone hopes that their labours will eventually receive the best reward of all—conerete results.
But there are others: here the imp of sceptic mystification gets sy. The other day, for example, a modest paragraph revealed the swift passing of a gentleman from Europe who was. credited with an intention to study China's labour problems. Shanghai saw him—if it looked very hard—for a few hours and then he sped northward Peking. He will be back in Europe in April. Let it be hoped that Europe will be edified by his researches. Shangha ventures to be unmoved. ment, indeed, intrudes to banis! resentment. ' Shanghai knows well that labour problems require examination. It does not} pride itself excessively on its own treatment of them, but it claims that it has a fair, experience. It even when indi under lew, Shanghai fills in a good deal of the picture. Statistics (which prove anything lor nothing) will not be cited. Nor will it be pretended that] plentiful Dlackberries model factories here are as: as September.. So there is some jeause to wonder at the courage lof a bird of passage who tempts the perils of the journey from Europe to learn about China's labour problems and manages to dispose of Shanghai so cursorily. He is able, of course, to amass literature from Geneva's records, from the proceedings of learned societies, from the discussions of Pacific and not so pacific conferences. Can he neglect the: personal touch? Apparently he can, if he be a pikd of passage winging his way from Geneva to the Orient. He relies on the! modest genius which deprecates button-holing of Shanghails bureaucratic wizards and dis-torian respectable ugliness. The lusianed philanthropists. He! ventures perhaps to probe the hotel booking clerk's views on silver, on the tael, on the rickshaw problem, on factory inspec. tion, while he is waiting for the indefatigable passenger agent to unravel the "mysteries of the timings, of that aeroplane, train or steamer engaged to take him to Peking.
The tenderest solicitude is [properly shown for the welfare. of these diffident. samplers of Shanghai's quality. Not a word would be said to disparage their Jiudgment or intentions. Yet it would be a pity if, the word were allowed to believe that their visits are unnoticed. In the last few years there have been several of these sudden appearances which have taken a hasty salute of the Bund or Nan king Road and then passed out into the glamour of that, beyond to which all good globe-trotters, cinema stars, touring political leaders and their kind are supposed to go. Possibly, in due course, a volume will' come to the Shanghai bookstalls to rexa the Shanghailander with the visions created and the dreams dreamt by sojourners briefly revelling here, From the halls of Geneva may echo casual Jobiter dicta borne on the radio or cable to reveal the effect of Shanghai's concrete on the mind of the bird of passage. Otherwise these visitations seem to rank among those portents which have no meaning for th And the thought insistently ses: why?... and again, why? There was, for example, not so many months ago a well: spoken gentleman from Geneva who, charged—with—some mysteriously defined mission, murmured in honeyed accents about his desire to get to the! bottom of this or that. Chinese enigma. He dismissed Shanghai h its Settlement and its Concession and—for all the rest. of. his company might know—its City Government as well, with the airy assurance that Geneva mew all about it Geneva in fact regarded Shanghai as a place which had no defined existence in a world internationally'
amed to solve problems, whether of labour, economics or politics. Shanghai felt humble—or would have had that feeling if the gifted cre ture had not kept severely to himself for the rs|few hours of hi enforced detention here. Shanghai would have also felt supremely anxious about his future peace of mind. Such a gentle spinner of words, and fashioner of fantasies might conceivably find the world an inhospitable place, for surely Shanghai could not be the only grossly material irrelevancy against which his gossamer delicacy would batter a fairy brain. "However that question did not arise, for, so far as can be gathered, he was never heard of again, tried to get through to him in Geneva but all was silence. So perhaps, after all, these birds of passage are not really problems for Shanghai. They are merely the fluttering, unruly sprites of whom Geneva desires to get rid, (Misled by the internationality of Shang. hai's fame, they desperately seek refuge here, only to find that, by. some error of the fifth dimension, they cannot tune in to the prevalent waves. Thus their thwarted genius hurriedly lextricates them from an impalpable nightmare, And, be it whispered, Shanghai breath again,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.