Judging by the general opinion of the first two days of Shanghai's "Safety First" Week, the organizers of this campaign to minimize accidents, make Shanghai streets safer and instill a greater idea of traffic conduct and control for the benefit of the public, are doing a good job of work. It is too early to pass any judgment on the campaign or its results, but the general impression is that it has stirred the public conscience to the urgent needs of the situation which the organizers are trying to correct. It can safely be said that never before has such a large volume of ce-operation been obtained for a problem of community interest and importance. The police, transport companies, hire car garages, theatres and organizations interested in trafic conditions are acting as guides, propagandists and teachers, but a much more valuable form of assistance is the voluntai efforts of the general public, represented by boy scouts and other interested people, in doing their bit at street corners, distributing leaflets, talking. to ric: shaw pullers and pedestrians and. on the whole, doing their best by personal approach and example to spread the principles on which the week's campaign is based. In the past, there has been a tendency to ignore that great, untapped volume of public ce-operation in tackling community problems. The tendency has been to canalize efforts through interested parties leaving out of account that greater section of Shanghai whose support not only in traffic but other questions can be easily obtained by a frank and direct appeal rather than relying on official machinery to attain the desired end. In this respect, the organizers of the "Safety First" Week are to be congratulated, and if the week is successful—and there is no reason why it should not be so in view of widespread reaction to the organizers' efforts—then the traffic situation should show a marked improvement and another chapter of Shanghai's public spirit and the welfare of the city will have been written. a
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.