London, Sept. 23.
The terms of the Japanese reply to the British Note on the wounding of Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British Ambassador in China, justify the fact that the Government regards the incident closed in the opinion of the Conservative press, which, however, expresses deep concern over the coincidental air raids on Nanking and Canton.
The attacks, it is remarked, are hard to reconcile with Japan's assurances and her concern over the safety of non-combatants and foreign rights and property.
Liberal opinion is voiced in the "News Chronicle" which, referring to the raids, says: "They are the worst examples of indiscriminate cruelty on a mass scale in modern history." The journal asks readers to turn to a half-page photograph of a wounded Chinese baby lying on a stretcher being bandaged by a Boy Scout and urges them to write to their representatives in the House of Commons demanding British action among the Powers to end indiberiminate bombing.
Voicing Labour opinion, the "Daily Herald" refers to the attacks ọn Nanking and Cánton as acts of savagery and barbarism. Unless nations band together through the League of Nations, it adds, the fate of Nanking now may be the fate of their own capita to-morrow.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.