The comments in the London papers on the Shanghai struggle have been remarkably alert und to the point. It is not often that a situation in China is so accurately diagnosed on the immediate receipt of press despatches. A notable example of this clarity of view is afforded by the comments of "The Times" on an attempt on the part of the Japanese authorities to drew a parallel between the events of last month and the despatch by the British Government of the Defence Forces to Shanghai. The Japanese Foreign Office declared that the present operations were on a line with the British action in 1927 when "a mob of anti-
British demonstrators invaded the International Settlement." The statement added that "the two cases do not differ except in scope." Unfortunately for Tokyo "The Times" after publishing this statement on August 17 promptly came back on the following day with an emphatic retort:
In point of fact they differ in almost every factor. In 1927 China was in the throes of civil war; where there was no fighting there were strikes; Communist propaganda had inflamed almost' all native sections, When the National troops entered Shanghai the native quarters were given over to massacre and pillage, and only a strong force of British soldiers prevented a rabble of panic-stricken soldiery from overrunning the International Settlement. Meanwhile the strikers, between fighting, were being harriea by orators and incited to anti-foreign acts; but it may be recalled that of the 112,000 strikers in Shanghai only 18,000 were employed in British-owned factories, Great Britain in 1927 merely did what she is doing now; she sent reinforcements to safeguard life and property, and the presence of the reinforcements had a calming effect, Few people in Shanghai who knew of the Tokyo statement have been misled by it, but it is highly satisfactory to see that even further afield than Shanghai it cut little ice.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.