News of the Week
/THREE influences at least are responsible for the
initiation of peace discussions at Shanghai— the publication of Mr. Stimson's letter to Senator Borah, the imminence of the special session of the League of Nations Assembly, and the astonishingly gallant resistance of the 19th Chinese Army to the Japanese attacks. To that may be added the increasingly general con- demnation of 'Japanese aggression by world opinion. That is true particularly of the United States, where even the desirability of an economic boycott is being discussed more widely than elsewhere. It is by no
• means a question to-day of whether the United States • would be willing to keep pace with the League, but ' whether the League is prepared to take steps sufficiently decisive to satisfy the United States. The statement of the extremely well-informed Washington correspondent of The Times on Thursday, that while the United States Government will throw the weight of its influence against an economic boycott it _ realizes how gmv.e a step it would be to refuse participation in such a measure, is evidence of a radical change in America's traditional isolationist policy,
