"HELPING CHINA."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 200, 24 August 1937, Page 9

"HELPING CHINA."

JAPANESE AMBITIONS. CONTROL OP NARCOTIC TRADE. "Japanese newspapers and statesmen are making a great point of the fact that all they are trying to do i 3 to help poor China," said Mr. J. Trevor Thomas, a well-known Ashburton stock auctioneer who returned from a tour of China and Japan yesterday by the Niagara, when discussing the war, "but it is interesting to note that outside Shanghai the Japanese have erected huge factories for the manufacture of drugs to supply the, Chinese with narcotics. In Manchukuo they* have taken complete control of the opium trade. "There> is more in the war than newspaper messages indicate, and it may last twelve months," he continued, pointing out that he had been informed on good authority that 50,000 Japanese troops were being dispatched to the scene of hostilities each week, the object being to land half a million eoldiere there within a short period. Magnificently Equipped. "The Japanese troops are magnificently equipped, and the sending off of the troops is reminiscent of the days of the Great War. Flags and banners fly and bands play at every station. The development in Japan eince I was last there 30 years ago ie incredible. The people then were a quiet, homely nation, but to-day ,with the rapid advances made in education, they let you know that Japan is for the Japanese." At Shanghai, Hongkong and in other parts Mr. Thomas saw Chinese troops, but he was not impressed. Now, however, restrictions prevented tourists going north in China, and all aliens were being evacuated as fast as transport facilities would permit.

In his opinion, said Mr. Thomas, the Japanese would do what they liked with China, and would eventually take Peiping. That done, the present ruler of Manchukuo would be transferred to Peiping and married to a Chinese. The Japanese' had done wonders in Manchukuo, which they proposed in four years' time should carry four million sheep, in accordance with their five-year programme. The sheep were Merino crossed with the Mongolian type, and they were proving a success, and now Corriedale ewes and lambs were being imported from New Zealand. Hβ also paid a tribute to the way in which the Japanese had stamped out brigandage.