27 FEBRUARY 1932, Page 1

A Shanghai Lull

Meanwhile there has been a lull in the fighting while Japan (which has renounced war as alt instrument of national policy and undertaken to seek no settlement of any dispute except by pacific means) brings up fresh forces adequate to achieve her ends. What those ends are is a matter of considerable doubt. If the Japanese are really lighting to clear a zone of twenty kihanetres from the frontiers of the International Settlement they will obviously have to police it when it is de:m.4i and the Settlement will exist encircled by a ring of Japanese. But -since it seems clear that the Chinese. welded once More into a united country by Japanese aggression, will never agree to surrender an inch more of their national territory voluntarily. and - if pushed back twenty kilometres will still go. on fighting, there is no term at all to he set to the present conflict. The pause due to the .Tapanese set-hack gives the League 411 Nations Council one more opportunity to . declare itself with firmness. A renewed attack on China, to gain sonic ends which Japan has made no attempt to achieve by the pacific procedure laid down in the Covenant, is a violation of pledges a little more flagrant even than any the Japanese delegate acknowledged at Geneva last week. It is satisfactory to know that Sir John Simon.

M. Tardien and Signor Grafitti are all again at Geneva. That is clearly their right place at the moment.

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