The "Tairiku Shimpo," a local Japanese daily which has been notable at times for the manner in which it ready unaccountable meanings into the news, has announced that the Special Branch of the S.M.P, is nothing more than an organ of the British Secret Service. It charges that the Branch gives the results of its investigations only to the British, and that when Japanese apply for information, they are invariably refused. The Branch, the daily goes on to assert, is an espionage service for the British, which is being run at the expense of the international community of Shanghai. "Although the S.M.C. is an international in stitution, the British subjects in its service are conducting themselves in an arbitrary manner and with much self-complacency......It is a curious fact that this subject has never been taken up for discussion up to the present," the Journal concludes. Of course, one reason for this "curious fact" may be that there is not an atom of truth in aby of the charges, and the comment of the "Tairiku Shimpo" would have been dismissed with the contempt it deserves, were it not for the fact that it coincides with alleged spy-hunts elsewhere, and a remarkable series of charges against the Salvation Army. which is also regarded ay 'a branch of the British Secret Service by some of the newspapers published in Tokyo, and by the "Sin Shun Pao," published in Shanghai, So far as the Salvation Army is concerned, ti charge is, of course, only a repetition of the charge made by the Germans in the last war, and has been proved totally groundless. The fact that the Salvation Army has been so attacked, however, is pretty clear indication of the Nazi inspiration behind these spy charges—of which more may be said on another occasion. Reverting to the Special Branch, it is not possible to give details of their operations, since there are many gangsters and agitators in Shanghai who would dearly love to know all about them. It is sufficient to say that it is an important department of the Municipal Police which performs an essential duty in the preservation of law and order in Shanghai.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.