taken advantage of this advice, and of the promise of assistance made by the British Government, and have registered for evacuation if that should become necessary. This is a reasonable precaution. It is unfortunate that some families have been unable for various causes to go as far in preparing to evacuate as have others. Insofar as they have been inspired by genuine inability to take the advice which has been offered to them and have not set themselves up superior critics or as better informed than those who are in touch with the intentions and policy of their governments, they are to be pitied. Those who have neglected to take the official advice in the belief that they know better deserve no more consideration than the foolish virgins in the parable. They are the type upon whom advice is always wasted, and it is probable that they will be the first to panic if ever the situation against which they have been warned arises. At the moment they are armoured by their own self-opinionated ignorance. 'The other type, however—the type" which' would go it it could, but cannot—is not so protected. In the absence of- official information, there is a tendency to seize upon any wild rumour and, if it fits into the victim's secret fears, to believe it and be shaken by it. It is forgotten that promotion in the civil service
Did not President Roosevelt when asked the oes not, carry with the prophet's mantle. other day if there would be a Pacific war. reply that "No interpreter of the international scene knows the answer"?
Shanghailanders are just getting over one hilter experience of the Fifth Column—in the food market, and that experience should be enough to make them think before falling for silly stories, or even for stories which are within the bounds of possibility but which are too unlikely to happen for one's actions to be governed by them. It has been 4 favourite trick with food suppliers to tell the housewife that unless she buys immedi~ ately at the price being quoted—usually several times what the article is worth—she will have to pay much more tomorrow, or perhaps there will be no stocks at all to be bought. The falsity of this plea has been exposed by the sharp drop in prices which has followed the action taken by the authorities of the two foreign areas against profiteers. For some weeks the food Fifth Column had its way, with a result that man; households which listened too glibly to are now stocked with food, often of a perishable variety, which they can now buy with out dimeulty at about half the price. That is what panic in the food market did for the profiteer, who in turn did the housewife. The example should be sufficient to prevent unnecessary panic over the possibilities of the future, should the worst happen in the There are plenty of ways in which Shang-hollanders can get the latest news without putting too much store on the information handed out by Mrs. X's nail amah's friend's husband. There are the newspapers, which attempt to give as balanced and as impartial: a review of happenings throughout the world' as they can. There are many broadcasts. The B.BC. can be heard in Shanghai by those who do not have short wave sets through listening to stations XGDN and XMHD. For those who have short wave sets, there is news from London, from San Francisco, from Hongkong, from Manila, and ' from Singapore' or Australia, all of which attempts to give a faithful summary of what {sis do" eventually: manage (and an. anon is going on in the world. Listening to these {othe question. which t thus pose sources of news may put Mrs. X's nail amah's the question which the fy has ins posed R'would not seem that the Keows {friend's husband out of business as a retailer cage Would serve any user purpose of the latest inside information. But at the course, it is proposed to invent akopiated same time it may hit a Fifth Columnist on. able to cling to the under surfaces of clown, the head hard enough to make him wonder' in any event the ordinary man wi ced if the stars he sees are not some sort of static heals' shoulders and oak what Jy the 7 interference with the mysterious waves upon bothering about such matter, "After fact that "ies can Tandon cells which he depends for his knowledge. they "care. to do so. with auch Speed that who human eye cannot detect how it fedora: Unt "thes Busines, and, "considering ie one
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.