NEWS OF THE WEEK
EVERYTHING that has so far happened in the war in China is overshadowed by the Japanese air-raids on Nanking._ At the very moment when the Japanese Foreign Office, with what events prove to have been the bland hypocrisy characteristic of- communications from that source, was assuring the British Government that " it is the desire and policy of the Japanese Government to limit as far as this can possibly be done the dangers to non-combatants resulting from the existence of hostilities in China," the Japanese air-squadrons were being tuned up for their criminal attack on a city which could not be bombed without involving the death of thousands of defenceless non-combatants, both British and foreign. There is no question of an isolated raid. Japan, chagrined possibly at her failure to wear down the Chinese resistance at Shanghai, and conscious of her inability to stand the financial strain of a long campaign, has determined, by recourse to any barbarity, to terrorise the Chinese Government into submission. The British, French and American Governments have protested vigorously against the raids, but Japan is in no mood to take notice of any protests. Active military intervention is out of the question for geographical reasons, even if in the present state of Europe any European State were prepared to contemplate it, but Japan is highly vulnerable economically, and the question of whether nothing more effective than futile verbal protests is possible in face_ of brutal and ruthless aggression ought at least to be considered,
