It is true that in the large cities the population is completely cowed and is becoming resigned to its fate, and rather than starve or come into direct conflict with the Japanese is ready to ce-operate with them in many directions. But even this attitude is little more than one of passive acquiescence and cannot be regarded as active liking or desire for Japanese tutelage. In how far the Japanese will be able to carry through their economic and industrial schemes for north China, with a population in such a frame of mind, is hard to say. The next few months will probably give some further indication. Nevertheless, the example of what they have accomplished in Manchoukuo in spite of an originally hostile and unwilling population, cannot be entirely ignored.
The exploitation of north China would certainly seem to dispose of that favourite contention of the Pacifists that war does not pay. The Japanese Army is certainly making its war pay or, at least, is making it return immediate dividends, For an outsider it is impossible to estimate to what extent these immediate profits will cover the cost of the military occupation. While the broad question of whether Japan might not have obtained as great, or even greater, economic advantages in North China, without her huge expenditure of blood and treasure, only the historian of the future will be able to answer satisfactorily.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.