To the Editor of the "Nowrn-Cumwa Dany News"
Sm—A foreign resident of Nanchang writes: "The banks of the 'Yangtze are, always rather bleak looking in winter, Wut never previously have "I seen them as they are now. For mile after mile we did not see a' human being, Villages there "were, but scarcely a living thing near them." He adds: "Wuhu is a deserted city" and "another stretch of of lifeless country is between Wuhu and Nanking. not a soul or soldier to be seen." He continues: "I was told that 100,000 Chinese were killed in and around Nanking" and "all the way down to Chinkiang the river banks bear witness of the devastation of war, numerous wrecked junks, launches, hulks, and lighters being seen, but still no life ashore." "A Chinese cruiser, one of the two modern. cruisers the Chinese owned. lies against the north bank of the "river."
In reading that, one asks oneself How long will that senseless devastation be allowed to continue? What did Shanghai, mean to leading Chinese residents, if not an opportunity to develop a sense of reality and to perceive more clearly "the deficiencies of China's cultural characteristics?
"Will none of. these Chinese leaders of Shanghai come forward and say "That is the limit" "Quousque tandem. abutere patientia nos tra?," in English:—"How long is our patience to be criminally exploited?"
Their sense of reality should teli them that a government which leads its people into a war without h.\ ing provided it with the means of warfare. is unworthy of that. name, They should be grateful to the Japanese for having given them a "Demon-stratic ad oculos" of the value of this so-called "government.
Their capacity of perceiving the deficiencies of Chinese cultural characteristics should enlighten them sufficiently to grasp the fact that now is the time to get into touch with the Japanese in the only way which has always been, and is still, open to China thit is through mental approach.
Their realization of China's deficiencies should remind them of the original inner power of China, which taught the people to face violence with mildness and to transform aggressiveness into collaboration through reticence and calm, Even if Japan were as "bad" as (Nanking propaganda has made the Chinese people believe—which Japan is not—Shanghai Chinese leaders should be conscious of the necessary to bunch them together, mark "Printed Matter" on the package and mail them to the above address. I Yesterday's letter was right in calling it a pity to throw them away, Here is a practical way of letting them carry the message of Christmas a little further.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.