The preceding chapters have dealt mainly with human injuries caused directly by the action of Japanese forces during and after their occupation of conquered territory and include only brief references to deliberate and systematic destruction, mainly by burning, after Japanese occupation of the areas involved had been completed. The organized destruction of homes and property in general, however, is of such vastness as to be little realized by the world at large.

Neutral foreign observers who have had the opportunity to travel extensively in the lower Yangtze River Delta since Japanese occupation of the areas state that destruction similar to that witnessed in and near Shanghai has occurred on an almost identical scale in the larger cities, such as Nanking, Wusih, Soochow and Chinkiang, no less than in the thousands of isolated groups of farmhouses which dot the countryside. These observers emphasize that, as at Shanghai, by far the greater proportion of this destruction is not the result of direct war operations but occurred after Japanese occupation.

The suffering caused directly by Japanese military excesses has thus been exacerbated by the destruction of countless homes and, more important, by the almost total annihilation of the means of production and means of existence in the case of hundreds of thousands, of those fortunate enough to have escaped direct military brutalities. Less poignant, perhaps, are the effects of these "indirect" causes, but for the population at large the destruction of their means of production and existence is even more telling than the rape and murder of tens of thousands of other victims.

Comprehensive data are of course not yet available, but at least in Shanghai itself-until the midsummer of 1937 China's chiei industrial center-and to a lesser extent in other cities of the Yangtze River Delta sufficient information has been collected to make possible estimates of the ravages caused by the war and subsequent destruction. The gradual opening, to a few foreigners' at least, of the Shanghai International Settlement areas still under illegal occupation1 by Japanese military forces has permitted detailed inspection of the effects of three months' fighting at Shanghai and has belatedly brought to light activities of the Japanese which had previously been more or less hidden from the general public. These activities will be described later.

Probably the most accurate estimate to date of factory destruction in the Shanghai area is contained in the reports of the Industrial Section of the Shanghai Municipal Council of the International Settlement. A preliminary report of January 7, 1937, stated that the number of factories and workshops destroyed in the northern and eastern areas of the Settlement alone was 905, which, in normal times, employed a total of some 30,868 workers. These factories, the report states, were totally destroyed by fire. An additional number of about one thousand factories and workshops, large and small, have been more or less seriously damaged. "It is not possible to state the condition of these factories and workshops, but it is known that in some of the larger mills machinery has been rendered useless and would require replacement.... Evidence of disturbance and looting of factory premises is common. It is therefore assumed that none of these thousand plants could recommence operation."

The losses in the Shanghai Settlement constitute a minor part of the total destruction at Shanghai, for the larger industrial sections of Shanghai are located outside the borders of the Settlement and in such Chinese-administered territory as Chapei, Pootung, Jessfield, Nantao, Lunghwa, and similar districts. Chapei has been almost completely destroyed. This thickly populated area had in 1937 hardly recovered from the Sino-Japanese hostilities of 1932, which lasted for only a month, but caused losses estimated2 at　about ￡100,000,000. Nantao, the old Chinese city of Shanghai, lies south of the French Concession and is another important Chinese industrial district. Relatively little fighting occurred there and Chinese troops had completely withdrawn from this area by the end of November 1937. There followed in December, January, February, and well into March, 1938, what Shanghai papers have described as "an orgy of burning." More than 80 per cent of the buildings in Nantao have been gutted by fires, almost all of which occurred after the Japanese occupation. Literally thousands of shops and factories have been completely destroyed. The Kiangnan Dock, a governmental enterprise which built the U.S.S. "Panay," has been almost completely destroyed. In Pootung, an industrial district on the banks of the Whangpoo River opposite Shanghai proper, similar devastation has occurred, including a large governmental alcohol plant, equipped with American machinery, which enjoyed a monopoly of production in this field in Central China.

1 March, 1938. The Japanese forces have been in illegal occupation and control of the Hongkew, Yangtzepoo, Wayside, and other districts of the Shanghai International Settlement since August 14, 1937. This area comprises more than 33 per cent of the area of the Settlement.

Many columns could be filled with lists of fully or partially destroyed industrial establishments in and near Shanghai. The following Shanghai Municipal Council estimate, covering the International Settlement alone, will give some indication of the general destruction

(1) TYPE OF ENTERPRISE, (2)NUMBER KNOWN COMPLETELY DESTROYED, (3)NUMBERS OF WORKERS FORMERLY EMPLOYED

Commenting on this estimate, the American-owned China Weekly Review observed :

"One can only make a wild guess at the average value of these manufacturing establishments', the greater variety of which were comparatively small and employed a limited number of workers. The manager of an American machinery house in Shanghai which supplied a great many of these plants informed the writer that these factories would probably run from U.S. $5,000 to $1,000,000; for example, the losses of the Nanyang Tobacco Factory, which previously used large quantities of American leaf tobacco, amounted to U.S. $660,000, covering the main factory buildings which were entirely destroyed. Then there is the matter of losses suffered by retail establishments and here again it is largely a matter of specu- lation. The officials of the Tax Department of the International Settlement think that a minimum of 100,000 retail shops have been destroyed and this also includes the homes and personal properties of most of the proprietors, who usually lived in rooms above the shops. Acres and acres of these little Chinese shops have either been destroyed by fire, air bombed or shelled by artillery or they were looted of their contents. One can drive through street after street in the Hongkew, Yangtzepoo, Chapei and Nantao districts and observe destruction on both sides extending for vast distances. Literally it seems that the wreckage extends for miles. In 1932 an area about a mile wide and two miles long was largely wiped out, but this time it seems: that practically nothing escaped in an area estimated at more than three miles square. In many cases the destruction is practically indescribable. For example, hundreds of retail shops with living quarters above, located in the vicinity of the Administration Building of the Shanghai-Nanking-Hangchow Railway were so completely wrecked by continuous air bombardment that scarcely one brick was left standing on another.

"A Japanese visitor from Tokyo who accompanied the writer on a trip through this area was speechless with astonishment and only managed to catch his breath and exclaim: 'Jusr. like our earthquake.' What he referred to was the devastating quake which almost wiped out Tokyo and Yokohama in 1923."

The same issue of the Review also published the following estimate of losses in the Shanghai International Settlement north of Soochow Creek, the figures having been compiled by an American with a lengthy experience of trade and commercial activities in the Far East:

The total losses up to mid-November 1937 of Greater Shanghai were estimated by foreign observers to exceed three billion Chinese dollars-almost three times the estimated losses caused by six weeks of hostilities at Shanghai in 1932.

In the table given immediately above are two items' entered as "possible losses of goods destroyed or looted from warehouses in Hongkew and Yangtzepoo" and "possible losses of household effects, general merchandise... by looting and breakage in undestroyed properties in combat sections." These two items, totalling one hundred million Chinese dollars (about U.S. $33,000,000) consist of losses incurred almost exclusively as a result of organized Japanese looting or destruction. As early as October 1937 one could observe at Shanghai uniformed Japanese soldiers and Chinese laborers, most of them impressed workers, removing in a wholesale manner property consisting mainly of metals. In almost every case the property was loaded on to Japanese Army trucks and taken to Japanese controlled wharves along the Whangpoo River, where it was subsequently shipped to Japan on military transports. What property escaped damage from military operations was completely looted after the battle lines had left Shanghai. To this day1 such looting continues.

Newspapers in Shanghai were flooded with protests against such organized looting, which nevertheless continued unabated. Foreigners frequently reported finding uniformed Japanese servicemen freely looting their homes despite the fact that these bore signboards reading: "This property is under the protection of the Special Japanese　Naval Landing Party."

On January 31, 1937, the Shanghai Evening Post and the North-China Daily News published accounts of the wholesale theft of metal or "scrap-iron" from the Hongkew and Yangtzepoo districts which was shipped to Japan by supposedly reputable firms. According to the report in the North-China Daily News the scrap-iron was collected by coolies who claimed to be employed by the Japanese Residents' Association, but when a reporter for the paper attempted to photograph one of the dumps where the iron was being collected, he was attacked by Japanese "ronin" wearing semi-military uniforms. According to the Evening Post the Japanese removal of metal from　the areas controlled by the Japanese military forces began with the removal of sheet-iron from Chinese retail and wholesale iron shops along North Soochow Road. Later the Japanese iron collectors extended their activities to Chinese factories, where the machinery stocks were completely looted, including those of factories which had been burned. Still later the metal collectors began entering private homes or ruins of residences which had been burned and all pieces of metal, even hinges1 and locks of doors, were taken out. The article claimed that the machinery and other metals had been removed from some 1,000 Chinese factories large and small, one of the largest being the Nanyang Brothers cigarette plant on Yangtzepoo Road, which was struck by a shell and burned early in the war.

As already mentioned, the removal of machinery and metals from manufacturing establishments has been so extensive that complete replacements will be necessary before these concerns can resume operations. The amount of metal which the Japanese have removed from foreign and Chinese premises in the Shanghai areas alone can only be estimated, but it is thought to exceed greatly the figure of eighty thousand tons published in the Tokyo Jsahi. Foreign merchants at Shanghai familiar with the metal trades claim that the scrap-iron which the Japanese have removed from the city or are in the process of removing, probably exceeds 100,000 tons.

In an editorial entitled "To What End?" in its issue of February 4, 1938, the North-China Daily News stated:

"The systematic removal of metals from the areas north of the Soochow Creek to which reference has already been made in the columns of this journal is giving rise to very considerable anxiety in the minds of neutral observers. The word 'systematic' is used advisedly, for gangs of Chinese coolies under a Chinese foreman, and controlled by Japanese, have for weeks past been making house-to-house, factory-to-factory visits on Chinese property removing not only metal which might be rightly termed scrap, but all types of metal fabrication from boilers down to small motors. The process which is going on hardly comes within the ordinary definition of looting where marauding, soldiers take off what they can carry themselves, but amounts to the careful and systematic removal of every piece of metal which can be found on Chinese property. Obviously the Japanese are cleaning up the northern and eastern areas for the purpose of increasing their supply of scrap to be used for the manufacture of munitions and as a precautionary measure against any eventuality with which they may ultimately be faced. Actually compared with Japan's requirements the amount which can thus be taken away from Shanghai is not very imposing, but, in view of the hope that rehabilitation will soon be set afoot in Shanghai, the removal of essential machinery, which at no time could be put into operation, represents one of the crudest blows which could be directed against the future prosperity of this port. Machinery costing lakhs of dollars for the manufacture of rubber goods, and for making textiles1, down to the smallest motors for driving tool-making machines, steel bars weighing many tons down to the smallest pieces of metal costing but a few dollars are being taken out of Shanghai, and it is feared with every justification that Shanghai is being treated in a manner from which it will take decades to recover.

"It was1 recently stated on the authority of a Japanese journal that in the future Tientsin would take over many of the functions which have up to the present been carried out by Shanghai. Chinese factories which have escaped the effects of bombardment are being reduced to mere shells of brick and mortar. The ruins of those which have been destroyed are being thoroughly searched for whatever metal may still be found, and when the time comes for the Chinese to return to these areas" they will find nothing with which to recommence their industrial activities. Two considerations are consequently involved. One is the often repeated assertion by the Japanese that they are conducting hostilities against the Nationalist Government and not against the Chinese people, and the other concerns the future prosperity of Shanghai. With regard to the former can it be suggested for one moment that this organized plunder of one of Shanghai's most important industrial areas can be carried out without the humble Chinese themselves suffering? The question has but to be asked to answer itself. The Chinese industrialist is being made to suffer in his pocket as so many of his nationals have suffered in their bodies. The businesses which have been laboriously built up during the past ninety years or so, are being ruthlessly destroyed, and the flourishing districts of Wayside and Yangtzepoo are being reducedto mere shadows of their former opulence. It may be argued that shipping is the foundation of this port's fortune s. That is undoubtedly true, but the undertakings which have been created during all these years are just as necessary for Shanghai's well being as is the sea-borne trade in which she figures so largely. In face of these things how can it be said that these hostilities are not being waged against the Chinese people?

"This journal would be failing in its duty to Shanghai if it did not register the most emphatic protest possible. The matter concerns practically every neutral in Shanghai, as well as the Japanese themselves, and may be expected to have serious repercussions upon the fortunes of this great city. The organized spoliation of the areas in question must of necessity have a direct bearing upon the trade which has brought the foreign community to these shores, for without a prosperous Chinese community that trade would be impossible. The sterilization of these industrial districts will have a profound effect upon the future revenue of the municipality. And so it follows that not only are the interests of unoffending Chinese being damaged, but those foreign interests, the scrupulous respect for which has been so often promised, are being damaged to an extent which it is at present impossible to estimate. Let there be no mistake about it; it is not only mere scrap that is being removed from Wayside and Yangtzepoo ; Chinese installations of machinery are being dismantled for export to Japan. The wherewithal for ultimate rehabilitation is being taken away, and when the Chinese are allowed ultimately to return to these areas of desolation they will find themselves faced with the enormous task of building their undertakings from the bare ground up again. There can be none of that failure to understand the Japanese in this manner. The facts speak for themselves, and Shanghai is entitled to ask the question with which this article is headed. What is the purpose of stripping these areas of Shanghai of all that is necessary for a portion of the rehabilitation of this port, unless it is an endeavor permanently to disable? It may be argued that it is a form of reprisals for what was done to Japanese concerns in Tsingtao. What was done there this journal just as emphatically reprobated, and the considerations which applied in that instance just as closely apply in this. So much has already been done toward reducing these districts to mere skeletons of their original industrial proportions that considerable disaster has already been wrought. It is to be hoped that even now the Japanese authorities will hold their hands, for it must be apparent to them that a prosperous Shanghai is just as essential for them as it is for those Chinese and foreign interests which are being placed in such grave peril by a perfectly incomprehensible procedure."

The Shanghai Evening Post on January 24, 1938, printed this denunciation of Japanese looting at Shanghai : "Chinese properties in Hongkew and Yangtzepoo are reported by foreign observers to have been subject, over a period stretching back virtually to the commencement of hostilities and reaching to the present day, to steady and large-scale removal by Japanese.

"We wish at this time to ask how such conduct can be squared with official Japanese assurances that there is intended to be no confiscation of Chinese belongings save in certain special instances involving Chinese close to or in the Government or otherwise deemed guilty of leadership in China's resistance to Japan.

"If there is any doubt in the mind of responsible Japanese officials that things are as stated-that goods and equipment are being taken under Japanese supervision or by Japanese direct, without sanction of the proper Chinese owners, from godowns, factories and homes—that doubt, we believe, could quickly be set at rest by the most cursory of observation first-hand or inquiry among foreigners whose business connections have given them a special interest in the matter. Such ingenuous amaze as was registered at last Saturday's press conference may serve to keep spokesmen legalistically clear of commitments, but it shows no sincere desire to get at the truth. Chinese are not allowed access to their properties; foreigners, even when they see with their own eyes, and detailed lists of looted Chinese properties are kept, are reluctant to become embroiled in disputes which are not primarily theirs.

"But the facts are so widely known, and for the matter of that there are so many foreign victims of the same activities, that we doubt if they will be disputed. And if they are admitted, what justification can be brought forward?

"It has been stated that a formal authorization has been given the Japanese Residents' Association to loot Chinese properties as partial recompense for their own individual losses. Frankly we don't know anything about that save the report, and when the report was carried to a Japanese spokesman it was denied. So we have nothing definite about how organized and authorized the removals may be. Yet we know of the removals, we know that the Japanese authorities' could prevent them, and as the circumstances stand they constitute a clear and obvious violation of what we have been told concerning 'no confiscation.'

"Perhaps the statement with reference to confiscation had to do with passage of title to real estate. But the principle involved is certainly the same if a factory is; handed over bodily to the Japanese, or if—as we know to be the case-damaged but still valuable machinery is removed from that factory, leaving it a useless shell. When it comes to such property of immediately marketable value as, for example, cotton from godowns, there is only one word for unauthorized seizure and removal and that word is theft.

"Foreigners are now allowed freely in Hongkew and Yangtzepoo which presumably has brought a halt to any further large-scale removal of their goods. But Chinese are not thus freely allowed in, even yet, and they are helpless even to survey the situation of their properties. To take advantage of that situation seems to us without any excuse whatever and, as stated, completely to be in violation of the expressed official Japanese position."

Such comments were apparently unheeded by the Japanese, and the Shanghai Evening Post on February 3, 1938, again attacked the continued pillaging in an editorial entitled "Robbing China's Poor":

"There can be no possible argument save that of a desire wholly to exterminate the people of China--an extreme view which even the most violent of Japanese spokesmen have avoided-for policies of continuously depriving those people from the means1 of livelihood.

"Far from enunciating such a view, General Matsui1 and Admiral Hasegawa2 have made generous personal contributions to　Chinese refugee relief in Shanghai. Other leading Japanese have repeatedly declared that Japan has no animosity toward the Chinese people.

1 General Iwane Matsui, then Commander-in-Chief of Japanese forces in the Yangtze Delta area.

2 Admiral Hasegawa, Commander-in-Chief of Japanese Naval Forces in Chinese waters.

"Yet daily in Hongkew and Yangtzepoo, observers see continued Japanese removals: of machinery from Chinese factory properties, while Chinese owners and workers are alike debarred even from access to those properties.

"We do not refer, now, to the removal of damaged machinery from buildings which have been shelled and burned. Such removal is an unjustified confiscation but it is far less serious; than the removal of sound machinery, in working condition. This latter act is virtually the taking of rice from the mouths of hungry workers, now unemployed and placed more or less permanently in that category through the gutting of their places of former employment.

"Of course any such unauthorized removal is1 plain theft. But when it entails an elimination of the means of employment until such time as Hongkew and Yangtzepoo may be freely opened once more, it is something worse, for it contributes to the starvation of innocent men, women and children.

"If there is anything that can be said for the Japanese position in this matter we shall be glad to hear of it. Does; anyone doubt the facts, to begin with? And the facts granted, is Japan's need for metal a sufficient extenuation for this piratical activity which after all can hardly decide a war's issue, but which certainly has a most vital bearing on the welfare of helpless factory workers quite apart from the rights of the property-owners; themselves?"

Little statistical data is available regarding destruction and looting which is known to have occurred in other areas. Some indication of its extent has already been given in earlier chapters.

According to the China Weekly Review "... the destruction in Shanghai has been duplicated in innumerable towns and villages of the Shanghai Delta region of which Shanghai is the chief city and metropolis. Within a radius of 100 miles; from Shanghai there are no less than twelve large cities with an aggregate population of　5,000,000. All of these cities have suffered extensive war damage, not to mention the losses of smaller towns and villages in the area. For example, the industrial city of Wusih, located about 100 miles north-west of Shanghai, contained a population of 900,000. Its manufacturing establishments suffered heavy damages or complete destruction as a result of Japanese air-bombing operations. Losses included the destruction or serious damage to several flour mills, one cotton mill, one power-plant and a highly modernized silk filature which produced the finest grade of silk hosiery yarn for the American stocking trade. Another town, Kashing, located in the center of an important silk producing area in Chekiang province with 450,000 population, was devastated and completely evacuated. Another town, Sungkiang, about 25 miles from Shanghai, with a population of about 200,000, was almost wiped out. The city of Soochow, a rich and conservative metropolis located about fifty miles from Shanghai,　suffered a drop in population from 350,000 to less than 500 people when the Japanese occupied the walled area."

The Review quotes part of a letter written by a foreign motorist, who had completed a trip from Shanghai to Wusih, passing through Taitsang, Changshu, Soochow, and Quinsan, to the North-China Daily News:

"Nearly all villages near the road are burned or destroyed by bombing. Not a single chicken, duck or goose was seen during the entire trip. Farmers were working in the fields and numerous parties of country people under Japanese military overseers were mending the roads. All destroyed bridges have been restored.

"Just before reaching Wusih, the road passes through the once busy market town of Toongding. This town shows the most appalling destruction. There is hardly a house standing. A few people were seen picking among the ruins for the salvage of such articles as had escaped fire and shell.

"At Wusih the northern suburbs for a mile were burned, as were all cotton mills excepting one. Many silk hongs and warehouses suffered a similar fate. Hotels, shops, godowns and residences in the area between the railway station and city wall were destroyed. The railway station and city wall were destroyed. The railway stations and freight godowns are in ruins. Telephone and electric wires are down.

"On entering the city the same destruction is to be noted. It is estimated that at least half the buildings in Wusih have been burned. This includes all of the shopping district from the centre of the city to the north gate and from the north gate on out to the long iron bridge which spans the Grand Canal, on the road to Weishan. The long street which runs parallel with the Grand Canal, south of the city, for a distance of a mile has been burned on both sides. This city, which was once a great manufacturing center and grain depot, lies prostrate. "

Eye-witness1 accounts given elsewhere in this volume have attested that burning and looting were carried out by uniformed Japanese officers and soldiers, and that loot was removed by Japanese army trucks. Japanese "ronin"-the equivalent in English would be, approximately, "gangster"-took up where the military left off.

"It is this type of gangster--hangers-on of the Army--who is responsible for the systematic looting of Chinese and foreign properties located in territories now under control of the Imperial Japanese Army," says the China Weekly Review.1 "The published reports of murders, lootings and rapings for which uncontrolled soldiers of the Imperial Army were responsible in such places as Nanking, Soochow, Hangchow and Wuhu, have been repeated in hundreds of villages and towns by gangs of so-called ronin who have literally 'cleaned out' this section of China of everything of value which the unfortunate Chinese people were unable to carry with them when they fled en masse to points of safety in the interior of the country...”

"At many points up and down the China coast, particularly in Kiangsu, Chekiang and Fukien provinces, one finds monuments which have been erected in honour of local military commanders or provincial rulers of previous decades who have been successful in defeating pirates who have ravaged the coast and in some cases seized cities and held them for heavy ransoms. There is a monument of this character standing on a hill near the town of Nantungchow, about eighty miles up the Yangtze from Shanghai. The inscription on the Nantungchow monument states that it was erected in honor of a heroic Chinese commander who defeated a gang of pirates which had operated in the Lower Yangtze for many years. The pirate gang was composed of Japanese. Most of the other monuments of similar character that one finds up and down the coast also commemorate victories over Japanese piratical gangs1. One is reminded of the similarity of the present Japanese invasion of the China coast ! Despite all of the propaganda about the 'holy war,' 'pan-Asiaism,' 'economic cooperation,' 'anti-Communism,' the evidence is increasing that Japan's present expedition is not a war in the accepted 'undeclared' sense of the word, but only another pillaging and piratical expedition on a somewhat grander scale than previous adventurers of this character. If the Japanese had any idea of correcting long-standing abuses in the relations of the two nations or assisting the Chinese people to improve their political and economic status in the world as an independent nation, it is obvious that the Japanese Government would not permit its soldiery and citizens to engage in the orgies of murder, rape, looting, and incendiarism which have characterized this Japanese invasion of the China coast. These activities are not the normal manifestations of a nation of the 20th century imbued with altruistic and humanitarian ideals of helpfulness toward a weaker neighboring people. They are the actions of a nation still steeped in the traditions and barbaric conceptions of nationalistic aggrandisement as typified in European colonial policies of a bygone age.

"The Japanese have always boasted of their knowledge of Chinese History—in fact their present belief in the Divine Origin of the Emperor is an adaptation of the political theories of the Chou kings (1100 to 300 B.C.) who succeeded the Shang dynasty. The Chou kings regarded their wars against the Shang emperor as 'Decreed by Heaven,' and their attempt to conquer the then Asiatic world as the carrying out of a Divine Command. But while the Japanese have borrowed the terminology, they have seemingly failed to comprehend the political philosophy which the Chinese developed to a high degree even in the Shang dynasty (1750 to 1100 B.C.)—that military conquest always fails' where it is impossible to enlist the loyalty and cooperation of the population. World experience has demonstrated that it is impossible to rule a hostile people permanently by means of military garrisons, yet the Japanese are following that method of procedure exactly by planning to break the country up into small principalities to be ruled by Japanese armies. Although the Japanese have, through long preparation, demonstrated their military superiority over the Chinese armies, the Japanese have been unable to prevent their victories from degenerating into looting raids comparable to the actions of the barbarous tribes of the North and North-west which used to harass the Chinese Empire. Chinese civilization and political philosophy have survived because of the widespread belief among the Chinese people that rulers were appointed by Heaven to bring about the welfare of mankind and the promotion of the public good. While the Japanese have had much to say about the holy nature of their campaign, the actions of their uncontrolled soldiery and ronin adventurers have created the impression that the whole enterprise is nothing more nor less than the machinations of the devil.

"European political control as exemplified in colonial administra- tions in Oriental lands persisted because European colonial administrators learned to apply, in limited measure we admit, the political philosophies of the early Chinese sages. Thus they ceased to be regarded as bands of uncouth barbarian adventurers intent upon destroying Chinese civilization and culture and in time ceased to be regarded as hateful tyrants intent only upon gorging themselves on the spoils of war and the sweat of the enslaved population. But the Japanese failure to comprehend the inwardness of Chinese civilization was matched only by their equal inability to understand the reasons for the persistence of European colonial administrations on the Asiatic coast. The result has been the inevitable degeneration of Japan's 'holy war' into a sordid pillaging expedition not greatly differing, except in extent, from the activities of piratical gangs which harassed the China coast in earlier days."

All of this deliberate destruction, looting, and burning of Chinese property from modern factory to peasant hovel is another phase of the Japanese terror in China. It is in this fashion that Japan makes war upon the "obstinate Chinese Government" and the "lawless Chinese army."