Notes of two recent conversations on China. The first was
with a very competent and well-informed Chinese now in Europe. " Are you going to be able to hold Soochow (the object of all the recent fighting in Shantung) ? " I asked him. " I don't know," he answered, " and it doesn't matter—to us. It matters a great deal to the Japanese to fail to take it, but if we lose it we simply fall back a little further," and he pointed out on a map how relatively slight Japan's penetration into China was. " We have plenty of supplies coming in (he told me how) and plenty of men. The further Japan advances the more her communications will be exposed, and meanwhile she is cementing China's unity all the time." The second was with an Englishman— what is commonly called an old China hand, who knows Japan well too. " Two years ago," he said, " I told you Japan's industrial downfall was beginning ; now I will add her military downfall." Optimists ? Or realists ?
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