The four years from the extension in 1937 into Shanghai and the Settlement itself of national policies anc their expression in the violent form of war, have witnessed a challenge to those fundamental traditions o: international ce-operation by which the welfare and progress of the Settlement have been sustained. The European war has intensified the clash of those national policies and heightened that challenge.
If there is one lesson to be derived from this recount, it is that the projection into the geographical area of Shanghai of the play of nationalistic and sovereign forces must spell a further long period in which peace in this city will be absent and disorder and anarchy will continue rife. For, pending a settlement imposed by force of arms, there is little hope or reconciliation of the divergent policies of America end Britain Japan, and China.
In this extremity, excluding a miracle, it is only a matter of time ere there will be no immunity of any part of Shenghai from the total engulfment of war. If there is no hope that the feared total engulfment of war can be stayed. shall we nevertheless fail to postpone the evil as long as we can—perchance that a miracle may prevail? At least there is one thing thet we citizens of Shanghai can do, and that is to ensure that we are not guilty of Shanghai itself being the cause of bringing a total war to the Far East. If total war is to come, let it come uninvited by the aims, acts or public policies of our respective national communities. The only hope. barring a miracle, is to play for time, and one policy clone offers any hope.
That policy is the deliberate and active effort on the part of the leaders of every national section of this international community to exclude the extension into the municipal affairsofthis geographical area of the policies of their home governments. It will work, of course. only if each and every national section ce-operates actively in furtherance of this policy. A mere passive acquiescence in the policy is useless. Moreover, active leadership of the communities to the desired end is imperative. Miraculous almost as it has been, the inter grity of Settlement regime remains as yet fundamentally unimpaired, Despite all pressures and impediments to full Municipal control in the certain areas of the Settlement. and notwithstanding all appearances, the vital fact remains that the war has been kept out of our camp,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.