Dee, Of the amount of muddled thinking which has been going on in Shanghai in connection with the present hostilities the letter appx Ing in to-day's correspondence columns from HLA.T. is an outstanding example, It endeay= ours to base a type of euclidean lose upo false premise, and then to blame the Council by reason of the deductions so reached, The writer repeats the allegation of the saps spokesman to the effect that the Muni Police took to their heels, and abandoned the authority of the Council over the northern and eastern areas. That has been shown by statements from the Council and from quota~ tions from an article appearing in this Journal fon August 21 to be absolutely untrue, and it has (o be emphasized that what this Journal wrote was contemporaneous with the events reported, and constitutes no ex post facto denial vf the charge which the Japanese spokesman made. It is consequently: the best possible witness to the truth, and the truth is that the Shanghai Municipal Potic" vd out their duties in the eastern and norton districts to the best of their ability, with a courage and fortitude which is entirely credit able. Let there be mo doubt about it: the police did more than could in the cireum= stances have bean expected of them. With the contention that "the firat and paramount duty of the Shanghai Municipal Council, in times when its authority is threatened, is to prot the bounds within which it exercises its eon: trol and performs the functions of government conferred upon it by the Land Regulations." there may be little disposition to disiuree, 50 Jong as there is complete understanding, of what is meant by it. If it means thal it was the duty of the Municipal Council to take steps to eject the forces of a sovereign Pox already quartered in the confines of the Inter= national Settlement, the question may be asked as to how the writer of the letter ro= ferred to suggests it should be done. Is possible that the Japanese command would have accepted the admonition of a police as to what could not be done in the is in question, but HALT. will, perhaps, ize that this possibility is exceedingly remote, From August 13 the districts in question had become a battlefield, so much so that the Chinese forces at one time reached the banks of the Whangpoo. Only for a short i aL sufjeient to support the is now made. Is it to be eved for one moment that it was the duty civilian force like the Shanghat Municipal ound endeavour With 5 a matter for the contending forces.
They wore fighting for it, and it cannot for one moment be believed that either side would have tolerated any sort of inter. ference from the police. The police were powerless to do anything but offer the remaining civilian population whatever protec tion it lay in their power to alford. reduce the contrary argument to the absurdity it undoubtedly is, it has merely to be pointed out that, for example, the police could not be expected to endeavour to control whatever traffic there was in the areas concerned. Of course had they done so, they might have succeeded in keeping the contestants from clashing with each other, by directing them
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.