Mr, Neville Chamberlain's statements, in, the Mouse of Commons, on the subject of the Tien-Isla blockade are not satisfactory, for it fs not 4 question of what the British Government beeves the Tokyo Government wishes, but what actually going on in the northern' port. Mr. Chamberlain believes that the Japanese Government shares the British desire not to widen the area of disagreement, nor to render more acute the already difficult situation, while in another passage he is reported as having said that the general position was not yet clear, ete. The facts ave that the British and French Con-ossians in Tientsin are being subjected to what tis claimed Is in fact an act of war, for, sure-Jy, a. siege which alms at depriving the inhabitants, of those concessions. of the neces-sanct of life can be described as nothing else.
is sought to regard the whole matter as a purely Tocal incident, the work of the Japanese Army acting. in disregard of Tokyo's real Wishes, so well and good, but it does not face up. to. the. realities of the situation, Tientsin feannot be divorced from Kulangsu where there isa blockade in force to prevent foodstuils reaching the island from the mainland. That is being maintained by vessels of the Japanese Navy and is just og much an attempt to force the Kulangsu Municipal Couneit into surmise sion by threatening to starve the inhabitants of the island, as is the blockade in Tientsin an endeavour (0 force compliance with the un-Justiflable demands of the Japanese in that city. It is not, therefore, a matter so much of what fre' the wishes and. intentions of the Tokyo Government, which will probably even now seck to asstire Britain of their scrupulous re-Speet for British rights, but of what is actually being done by the Japanese military and naval forces. Foodstuffs are being denied Briton: French and third party neutrals in both Tien-{sin and Kulangsu; in the former port Britons are being stripped' to the buff for the purpose of making them "Jose face" and at least one British woman has been manhandled by Chinese police over whom the Japanese have control. To "seek to pursue a policy of appeasement witha Government which apparently has no. control over its military and naval forees, and ig indeed dragged after them into all_ manner of wild adventures, may appeal to people more obsessed with doctrines than impressed by facts, and there will be nothing but. uneasiness the Far East until it is made quite plain that no matter what assurances may issue from the Tokyo Government, it is the facts of the else with which Great' Britain is really con= cerned, To adopt any other point of view is to make sure of an unsatisfactory policy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.