News of the Week
QUIET continues to prevail at Shanghai, and many of
the Japanese warships in the river have left for home waters. The truce negotiations have been making slow progress, but there seems every prospect of their being finally concluded on the basis of a Japanese withdrawal to the Settlement and one or two immediately adjacent localitieS; the. Chinese remaining where they are, and both operations being supervised by neutral observers. This means that abandonment of the boycott by the Chinese is not being made a condition of the truce. That is as it should be, for the truce is a purely military affair. The settlement of larger issues belongs to the next phase, Which Will take the form of a Round 'Table Con- ference, with representatives of the League of Nations and the United States participating. The Lytton Commission is at Shanghai; and its members seem a little doubtful whether to' stay there and help in the peace negotiations or go north at -once to Manchuria." The situation there will need all the statesmanship the COmmission can apply to it, for.it is clear that the new. administration has no stability of its own and will collapse the moment the Japanese withdraw their. troops, if not before. If Lord Lytton and his colleagues can lay the foundations of a stable regime that will secure Japan.
the proper enjoyment of her rights, in return for an Undertaking not to overstep those rights, they may be considered capable of settling any political problem in any continent.
