CO129-563-17 Sino-Japanese War- attacks on shipping. For extracted photographs see CN 3-12 27-9-1937 - 17-1-1938 — Page 97

15

600

THE HONG KONG WEEKLY PRESS &

October 29,

1937

The Rules Of War

of

(Continued firom page 599) provides a certain amount amusement. It is only mad-dogs who have no sense of humour.

Going back to the Japanese protests against the Geneva re- solutions, it seems futile for them to hope, even for a brief moment, that anybody will give their protests any credence. A visit to the hospitals in the affected areas in China will show that the wards are full of inno- cent civilians. Perhaps in the course of time the Japanese pro- pagandists will tell the world that these civilians were not injured by the Japanese, but by stray shells and shrapnel from Chinese guns and bombs!

A DISGRACE TO THE COLONY

View of Shihchiachwang Station.

(Continued from previous Column) | (Continued from previous Column) in Hong Kong--we refer to the morphine, heroin-they are all traffic in heroin pills-that has the same, and the experience of been going on within the gates other colonies is diametrically There is a quaint impression of this great city for some consi- opposed to the official Hong Kong abroad-and we say this advised-derable time past.

view on the matter. ly as we have only the word of a Government servant-that this journal is definitely anti-Govern- ment, and, indeed anti-every- thing.

con-

We have nothing but

for such tempt

a groundless allegation. We are frank and free, and that is all there is to it. If a strict policy in respect to Governmental errors of omission and commission is to be "agin the Government" then, most but only emphatically, we are; within the limits of reasoned

Colonial argument.

forms of

so,

When the Hon. the Colonial Secretary, at Wednesday's meet- ing of the Legislative Council, made the amazing suggestion that it was fear of being found out rather than the severity of the punishment which deterred evil doers, we felt very strongly the honourable gentleman was taking the word of the police, for that is exactly the view of the Hong Kong Police on the matter. And when we heard that assertion from the lips of the Colonial Secretary our feelings government are, after all, noth- could best have been described by ing but a conglomeration of what has to be expressed on the appointments made at the in- typewriter by apostrophe stance of Whitehall, and, as superimposed on full stop. such, the people thus employed | For this reason, we must take are just ordinary folk subject to this early opportunity to place on record our most vigorous pro- the same errors of judgment and other human shortcomings which test at what we believe to be an govern the masses to-day. Thus, attempt to deliberately mislead they are open to criticism.

-

It is for this reason that we deem it our duty to-day to chas- tise the Police Department of this Colony with the whip of castigation for its abject failure to deal adequately with one of the greatest plague spots of crime

(Continued on next Column)

an

a

the Government on a matter of the gravest importance to the well-being of the great inarticu- late masses of this Colony.

When it comes to traffic in narcotics there is little to differ- entiate between the various forms traded in the East opium, (Continued on next Column)

The trader in narcotics would not mind taking the most grave risks in order to sell greater quantities of the poison if he were certain that he could get off with a fine. The profits from this traffic are so colossal that dope traffickers would gladly pay fines running into four figures. and as these vice rackets are generally operated in what are known as rings," the money

46

would more than likely come out of the pockets of the ring-leaders.

A heavy prison term is, how- ever, a totally different proposi- tion. That is what the dope pedlar fears more than anything else the loss of personal liberty.

We confess that we see some-

thing very sinister in the luke-

warmi manner in which this

appalling problem is being allow-

ed to "slide" by the police. Naturally, public suspicion is accentuated by reason of the fact that vast financial resources are at the disposal of, to quote the Hon. the Colonial Secretary's most apt description, "the sub- human creatures who grow rich by poisoning men and women (Continued on page 601)

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