CHINA FLAYING WITH FIRE

Evening Star, Issue 21098, 10 May 1932, Page 4

CHINA FLAYING WITH FIRE

WORKING FOR A WHIPPING BUT JAPAN TOO RUTHLESS Such are tho beliefs of the writer of the following letter to a Dunedin resident, dated from Shanghai February 29:—■ “War, grim and. deadly, has been going on since ray arrival here fifteen years ago. 1 left Korea on tho 9th and took my sou to school and then came down here, where Japan is whipping China with a cruel precision, while onlookers are amazed at tho amount of punishment she can take. But Japan cannot get in a knock-out blow, and the nations want to give a decision on points. Whether this can ho done or not remains to bo seen. Aly first acquaintance with the real thing was when coming into the Whang Poo on tho 14th. Jap. cruisers and a piano carrier were anchored off the mouth. On ahead were the Wu Sung forts. This powerful killing factory was in ruins, and so was the town of the same name. Behind us was a Jap. transport. It seemed as if we were to pass without any experience of a war-like nature. Blit soon business-like cruisers were seen gliding down, and as they passed tho town and forts let go deafening broadsides. As they were busy above and below us the concussion was overwhelming, and blood began to pour from my nose. Really, you could not imagine"anything more appalling! The Chinese had both machine guns and rilles ready, hut were not in the humour to let them off and reveal their positions. “ Later on a taxi took me to tho China Inland Alission. If there were snipers no one took a shot at me, but at all the important cross-roads were savage barricades devilishly decorated with barbed wire. From tho time I arrived at the mission on the hill the present big guns have been crashing day and night. Rillo and machine gnns, too, have been doing their deadly duty, and great conflagrations have been blazing fire and belching smoke into tho starry dome of tho cold, dear heavens Aeroplanes, at times seven or more, have been seen circling over the battle grounds, and often heard when not visible to the eye. They have been bombing over wide areas, and their power to devastate is enormous. Of course the destruction of lives and property «,s mounting up to billions in money, and the foreign settlements and French concessions are packed with homeless, penniless refugees. “ The Chinese imagine they are winning, but the Japs, are simply out to punish China in the heart of her citadel, and tho pitiful Lord knows she is doing it like a slow-moving, crunching machine. Our premises, five Storys high, have Hat -roofs, and we can not only hear the tumult hut watch the aeroplanes and the bursting shells. At night the awful fires truly suggest Judgment of the Old Testament times. Strangely enough even when the boom of battle in the night was ultra terrific I have slept all through it, and am oven now not conscious of any strain. Poor old China has been playing with lire and was working ior a whipping, but Japan has been 100 ruthless. To cripple a child for life because it has poisoned your pup is not condoned by the world conscience. If the punishment was falling on the contemptible and cowardly students one could consider it grim comedy, hut it is pitiless tragedy, because the sufferers are tho farmers and small traders who are too busy with their own affairs to bo the enemy of anyone. “ What is the cause of all the deadly strife? Tho main portion of the blame must he put on China. She has had too high an opinion of herself, and for years has been treating foreign nations without regard to treaty obligations. She has, also, sadly misjudged the spirit of Western nations; and, above all, has not been able since the Republic to form a Government capable ol ruling all China. She. has used banditry to cover sins of- officialdom, and has deliberately fostered international illwill in her schools, and specialised in insulting Japan and England. She also imagined the boj'cott us a deadly weapon, to be used with impunity. “ The Manchurian affair was tho culmination of hundreds of incidents and a permanently hostile spirit, and when Japan began to act she replied with a boycott which was a covert declaration of war. An effort on Japan’s part to stop this nonsense was the immediate cause of tho Shanghai hostilities and the withering results. So far no bad news has come from the Inland Mission stations, and it seems that the officials are above reproach. My wile is, as far as wo know, all right, and I am leaving for the west in a few days. “ It must be remembered that the foreign sections here have suffered very little; that is, the international settlement and the French concession. The latter is directly under but the * international ’ is not under England. The zone affected by the present hostilities is the Greater Shanghai, and is directly under China. Borh the composition of Shanghai and its government are rarely correctly understood out of China, or even in China.