A DARK STAIN

Evening Post, Volume cxxiv, Issue 148, 20 December 1937, Page 11

A DARK STAIN

HONOUR OF JAPAN

OUTSPOKEN COMMENT

Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, December 18.

In an editorial on Mr. C. M. McDonald's Panay aispatch, "The Times" says: "It is a hideous picture, only redeemed by the cool courage o£ wounded officers and the gallantiV of the crew of the small, stricken ship. •The attack was executed in cold blood.

"The Panay was flying the American flag and, even if the pilot of the first Japanese aeroplane that attacked, her did not see her distinguishing marks, there can be no excuse for the subsequent aerial attacks with .bombs and machine-guns, and above all for the behaviour of the crew of thcJapanese army launch. "America will not lightly brook this outrage on her flag and her nationals, and Italy—to one of whose nationals Japanese bullets brought agony and death—may now find it hard to regard the affair with the tolerant fatalism which she was ready to display earlier in the week.

"The sinking of the Panay leaves _ a dark stain on the honour and humanity of the Japanese fighting forces and illustrates only too clearly the, failure of the -High Command and the Government of Japan to do their duty to their Emperor by restraining _ their subaltern officers from committing a wanton and shameless provocation of a friendly Power."