CHINESE BOMBS FALL AMONG SHANGHAI CROWDS; HUNDREDS DEAD

SHANGHAI, 1937-08-14. — Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Shanghai to-day after bombs from Chinese aeroplanes fell in crowded streets of the foreign-administered districts during operations against Japanese naval forces. Explosions struck the neighbourhood of the Cathay and Palace Hotels, close to the Bund, and the vicinity of the Great World amusement centre. The destruction has carried the fighting far beyond the positions occupied by the opposing troops. No trustworthy final account of the dead and wounded can yet be given. What is already plain is that a battle ostensibly directed against military objectives has brought catastrophe upon people gathered in the city's busiest quarters.

The explosions near the hotels occurred at the eastern end of Nanking Road, where one of Shanghai's principal shopping thoroughfares meets its waterfront. This is no isolated military ground. Hotels, offices, shops and the approaches to the river bring residents, visitors and working people into a narrow compass. The foreign character of many buildings has offered their occupants no protection against bombs falling from above. Nor can the administrative boundary of the International Settlement protect those passing through its streets. The day's casualties expose the terrible vulnerability of a commercial city in which business premises and densely occupied dwellings stand close to military and naval positions.

Another scene of heavy loss lies by the Great World, near Avenue Edward VII and the boundary between the foreign districts. The establishment is among Shanghai's best-known places of popular entertainment, surrounded by streets ordinarily crowded with traffic and pedestrians. Refugees escaping the fighting have added to the movement of people through districts believed to be comparatively safe. Bombs falling here have therefore struck not merely buildings but concentrations of civilians. The separate scenes of destruction make an early reckoning especially difficult, and figures assembled from one locality cannot safely be taken as a statement of the city's entire loss.

The Chinese air operations were directed against Japanese naval strength on the Whangpoo, including the flagship Izumo, lying off the Japanese consulate. That vessel provides a conspicuous military objective, but one situated beside a great inhabited port. Bombs intended for the warship fell instead within the city. The precise circumstances of the releases, and the explanation for the weapons falling so far among civilian buildings, are not established sufficiently to permit a final judgment. The distinction nevertheless matters: the evidence identifies Chinese aircraft as the source of these explosions, not a Japanese bombing attack upon the hotel and amusement districts.

Shanghai's present battle follows the widening conflict which began near Peking at the Marco Polo Bridge on July 7. Here, the immediate crisis sharpened after two Japanese naval men were killed near Hungjao aerodrome on August 9. Chinese and Japanese forces have since confronted one another in and around the northern districts, and substantial fighting began yesterday. Japanese naval forces possess ready access from the river, while Chinese troops hold positions within the greater city. Such a disposition places streets, factories, warehouses and houses between, beside or behind armed formations. To-day's air disaster is the gravest demonstration yet of the danger created by that proximity.

The foreign settlements occupy a peculiarly exposed position. The International Settlement is administered through its Municipal Council, while the French Concession has a separate administration; neither arrangement removes these districts from Shanghai's geography. Japanese interests and forces are established in the northern part of the city, and foreign warships and guards are present to protect their respective nationals. Yet protection against street disorder is one thing, and protection against aerial bombardment quite another. The authorities must now confront a danger which cannot be met merely by posting additional men at a road junction or by announcing that a particular district stands outside the combat.

For commerce, the significance extends well beyond the shattered premises. Shanghai is China's foremost commercial port, a centre of banking, shipping, manufacturing and foreign trade. Its business depends upon the passage of goods between river, wharf, warehouse and railway, and upon the ability of clerks, labourers and merchants to reach their work. Fighting interrupts those connections even where buildings remain intact. A cargo need not be destroyed to become inaccessible, nor a factory demolished to lose its labour and supplies. It would be premature to attach a money figure to the day's damage, but the interruption of ordinary movement threatens losses throughout the port's trading system.

The Chinese Government has already declared the gravity with which it regards further Japanese encroachment. In his address at Lushan on July 17, General Chiang Kai-shek said that, if war came, there could be, in translation, 'no distinction between north and south, no distinction between old and young'; all would bear responsibility for defending the country's territory. Those words indicate the breadth of the resistance contemplated by Nanking. They do not, however, resolve the immediate difficulty disclosed here: military action undertaken in defence of Chinese territory has itself brought death to Chinese civilians, alongside the danger to foreigners within the settlements.

Foreign diplomacy has so far supplied principles rather than a settlement of the fighting. Mr. Cordell Hull, the American Secretary of State, declared on July 16: 'We advocate national and international self-restraint.' His statement also urged peaceful methods in international affairs and respect for agreements. Shanghai now presents those principles with an urgent practical test. Foreign governments have nationals, property and extensive commercial interests here, but measures to safeguard them must be taken amid active operations by Chinese and Japanese forces. Every further military movement near the settlements raises questions which diplomatic representations alone may be unable to answer quickly enough.

The city has endured a warning before. During the fighting of 1932, the northern districts suffered heavily, and the settlement reached in May of that year ended hostilities without removing the underlying rivalry. To-day's destruction demonstrates how readily danger can extend beyond the districts in which troops first exchange fire. The river, the foreign concessions and the great commercial streets form parts of one urban body, however differently they may be governed. Residents seeking security must reckon not only with the location of infantry and artillery but with aircraft capable of carrying the battle across every local boundary.

The immediate tasks are the care of the wounded, the identification of the dead and the protection of those still moving away from the fighting. Beyond them lies the unanswered question of whether military operations can be restrained before Shanghai's commercial life is further disabled. No reliable assurance of such restraint is available to-night. The death roll remains incomplete, and explanations of the bombing must be weighed against evidence still being gathered. For the present, the decisive fact is neither a territorial gain nor the destruction of a warship, but the slaughter of civilians in streets which had been regarded as places of business, refuge and ordinary life.