The toll taken by the Badlands is steadily increasing. The existence of this area just outside the Settlement-controlled roads, is responsible for the slightly larger number of armed crimes which are being committed in the Settlersent itself, for the criminals can find easy refuge by crossing the border and losing themselves in the nests of underworld "joints" which S. are now being held by the Special there. Two Chinese constables of the
Municipality of Shanghai for resisting what appeared at the time to be an armed crime on a Settlement road. It is fortunate for them that the reports, published locally, that they had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for attempted murder are unfounded. They seem to have been invented by parties who are anxious to undermine the loyalty of other Chinese attached to the S.MP., in the same way as notices put up within the last few months promising rewards to members of the SMP. who would go over to them. The sponsors of the Special Municipality are surely not behaving in their best interests when- they allow suspicions of their bona fides to be entertained. This case of the two Municipal policemen is very much in point, The men should be handed over to the Municipal Councit which, if they are guilty of any offence, is quite capable of charging them, So long as the Special Municipality holds them, the suspicion that they are being detained for unjustifiable reasons may be entertained, There remains, also, the ever-growing number of incidents" on the outside roads. By what right do the Special Municipality police hold a British soldier, no matter what his offence, so long as the authorities which are responsible for him are willing to take him over? The Special Municipality may rest assured that any Briton guilty of serious offences within their jurisdiction will be properly punished, Therefore, their action in detaining men who have been, at the worst "having a lark," is difficult to understand, And when it comes to detaining and threatening with punishment men who have been simply doing their duty, as in the case of the Chinese constables, their action becomes incomprehensible.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.