Need for Men of Character To the Editor of the "Nonmit-Cinxa Datty News"
Stm—Several significant points are raised by V.F.G. in her apology for Chinese" students" who have dissociated themselves from their coun try in the grave crisis now facing it. She speaks'of the "overproduction of man-power" in China, but she fails to add that there has been an appalling wastage of it because of the lock of trained and competent leaders. The masses of China have been largely lof to fend for themselves, to submit to the conquerors, whose altitude towards and. treat. unlent of them has been no more: callous than that of their own super-for fellow countrymen, T should Iie] to point out that in Shanghai there is a very great surplus of competent doctors who consider it cheaper to let their defenders die _uncared. for than to risk their precious live. bothering with them. "Also there is surplus of "political scientists" in 'Shanghai who might more profitably be serving their country in educating, the people, If ever there will be a me when trained men are needed in China, it is now before large areas of China' are permanently lost to the Centra! Government. Those of us who have come from the interior realize the great need of leaders to organize the great man-power of China inia effective fesistanee. Whether the type of education received in Shanghai produces the kind leaders needed Is of course another question. Men of character are far} more essential to China right now] {than students with a superficial know. ledge of Western subjects will be in the. very uncertain future, The point is not whether Chinese students should fight but whether they should assume: some responsibility for the welfare of the great masses of people. If they are conceived as an inexhaustible horde that can be endlessly pitted against Japanese-guns, then for what are the Chinese fighting? 1s their attitude towards this "surplus of man-power" any different from. that of former Chinese officials who made no effort to relieve famines because they considered them checks against a surplus population? If Chinese" 20 lightly disregard. their own fellow countrymen, then why not let Japanese-sponsored governments take over the job? Several heads of local' educational institutions and a considerable number of students have seen the hopelessness "of remaining, inactive in Shanghai and are on the point of severing completely their ties to. Chungking. "Even those who have chosen to remain inert indefinitoly will very soon have to jump off the fence, on which there has too ong been a surplus of man-power. If} every human creature does not have the same right to live, then by what criterion should the surplus be judged Shanghai, Nov. 13.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.