Lo the Editor of the "Nort CHrvA Dany News"
Sin,—Assent will be given to your editorial] prescription of the "mood Subtusc," or a dignified reticence in Patrioti¢. expression, as the correct rOle to-day of the Chinese and foreign citizen of this neutral cosmopolis, Yet with this essential rôle may there not be harmonized a creative outlook 9n the part of all Shanghailanders?
Many of us foreigners (and the term does not exclude Japanese) have long hoped ior the ultimate reward of the "legitimate aspirations" for Chinese national sovereignty over greater Shanghai, consonant with the consummation of a genuine Sino-Foreign partnership in the administrative affairs of this combined area, "We would assure our Chinese fellows that the hope, though now necessarily deterred, is not abandoned, Quite as imperative as the present need of a passivity in patriotic expr sion is the demand that Shanghai's citizens shall work towards bringing peace between China "and Japan, Whilst it is true that it is only in the background of that peace that we can reasonably contemplate the Shanghai that is to be, is it impossible that we should aim at once to build a city and a citizenship that will fit the pattern of that ultimate peace? Shanghai has been described às "the knot at the heart of China's tangled international relationships." The unravelling of that knot by its citizens may well prove the foundation upon Which Sino-Japanese national animosities may be composed.
It would be wholly understandable if these two nations of the "wise East" should of a sudden discern that their present tendencies are prone to Tepeat the follies of the Great War and the inevitable aftermath of Versailles. Perchance, then, they will mutually abandon the myth of a long war sufficing to end war. The peace, which they may suddenly erect, may enthrone forgiveness and not retribution; may repair and not perpetuate the past.
Some of us have faith that these are not impossibilities. What better field for the bringing of this peace than Shanghai itself? The local exemplification of a true chivalry on Japan's part will unquestionably evoke a warm response from the Chinese. Tokens of magnanimity which the Japanese may give cannot fail to gain ungrudging appreciation, Thus may be created a new local Sino-Japanese harmony whose effects may attain national proportions.
Incidentally, let us non-Japanese foreigners not be unmindful, too, of the need to examine and if need be quarter dogs out of every hundred licensed in England, are regis This should be amazing in some way or other, and no doubt can be proved io demonstrate something. Perhaps he wil now let us have a note of the number of dogs per square mile in England, and the number per square centimetre, works included, in Shanghai at present, But, as I recollect, my objection was to the cool assumption that all in the vicinity must, of necessity, submit continually to the hideous howls and dangerous nuisance of ill-trained and badly-managed dogs in this congested area. Is it too much to ask some of my all-round abusers to try to sticks somewhere near this point, Pity the poor Editor!
Shanghai, Nov, 22.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.