Shanghai Cut Off
The Communist armies moving on Hangchow are meeting, as was to be expected, with the minimum of effective opposition. There are so far no signs of an impending assault on the elaborate but flimsy defences of Shanghai, and there is at least a chance that the fall of that city may in the end be stage-managed without any serious fighting. British, American and French naval vessels have withdrawn to the Yangtse anchorage to avoid the risk of being bottled up in the channel of the Whangpoo, whose mouth is easily commanded by the guns of the Woosung Forts, and is narrow enough to be closed by blockships. The American naval authorities claim to have discovered evidence of a Communist plan to turn this channel into a trap for any foreign warships remaining at Shanghai. Meanwhile, the damaged ' Amethyst ' remains at her moorings up the Yangtse, neither harassed nor succoured by the Communists. This week's debate on China takes place too late for any comment in these columns, but it will have been a very unrealistic debate if it elicits from the Government no statement on the fundamental causes of the Yangtse disaster. These, as was pointed out in the Spectator last week, can be traced directly to the decision to retain a warship at Nanking in circumstances in which she was bound to become a hostage of the Communists and in which she could perform no essential service to the British community. Until the origins of this cardinal error are explained, the public must continue to feel uneasy over a most unfortunate affair.
