CHINA'S WAR ROADS

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 89, 17 April 1939, Page 5

CHINA'S WAR ROADS

BATTLE FRONT TOUR. AMERICA AIDS JAPAN. SCATHING COMMENT BY MADAME CHIANG. China's increasing determination to resist the Japanese invaders and her plans to bnild np the Western provinces are described here by the wife of Generalissimo Chianjr Kai-shek, who hns just completed an extended tour over the battle fronts. • (By MAYLING SOONG CHIANG.) CHUNGKING. Following our departure from Hankow, I have accompanied the Generalissimo on a two months' tour of the various fronts in Shensi, Hopei, Hunan, Kiangsi, Kwantung and Kwangsi. All of these regions are continuously being bombed by the Japanese. They are carrying on "their destruction with greater ferocity than ever, and are converting great numbers of our hitherto industrious population into refugees. But thousands of others are being killed by bombs almost every week. The refugees are flocking into the western country and we hope to see arise here a new China. Highways now connect all the provinces, and the outlet through Burma might be of great service in connecting: Western China with the outside world. Systematic transportation will be used over that route. Not only will trucks be employed, but vehicles mounted on motor car axles and wheels will ~00 drawn by animals. Every means of transportation will be used. There is talk of building still another road out from Burma to the head of navisation north of Bahmo. « suea a road can be built, we shall have the advantage of the full service, of tne Irrawaddy River and a shorter lanrt haul.

Scrap Iron For J«P*»»The Japanese are now trytogto make

they are going to find it increasingly difficult to deliver a smashing blow against our forces. We are hoping that they will find that hitting China is much like hitting a mattress. Already the activities behind the Japanese lines are giving them considerable worry. Fighting goes on through all the regions penetrated by the Japanese—all the way from near Canton to the Great Wall. Their lines of communication arc becoming more and more precarious, and at night time no Japanese force in any place goes beyond its own defence lines. The country is not "occupied" by the Japanese; it «is merely pierced along certain routes by them.

The spirit of our people remains untouched and the determination to resist increases instead of diminishes. No real Chinese could think of making peace with the Japanese while they are ravaging our land and carrying oat daily mass murder and rapine, to say nothing of doing worse things to our womanhood. The tragic thing is, as I have pointed out in many places and to many people, that so much of the munitions that kill our people and desolate our land come from America. It was more than tragic to hear over the radio just before Christmas that' agents of Japan in America had bought another 100,000 to 150,000 tons of scrap iron for shipment to Japan. That would be a Christmas gift of death and destruction to the Chinese people.

" Cold-blooded Materialism." One stands aghast at the thought that the American people who have shown so much sympathy for?* and have helped so much in « I "£ e w, £ should tolerate at the same h« shipments of •»» B J^"\ h f de £l, and I designed to about tie a destruction for Contribute too complex for my \ comprehend. in ]'. a a P t Japan will need in order to develop ;1 Sna T"t will be a profitable source c of raw materials for her industry. The cold-blooded materialism (worse words - coald be substituted) of this is beyond * belief when expressed by an American, p

In China we have always been brought up to believe, and we do believe, that the average American people are kind and just. But when we see that there are some who are ready to have our country wiped out in blood and fire-by the Japanese, so long as profits can. come through either supplying the wherewithal to the Japanese to effect that destruction, or by supplying finances to repair that destruction, our minds are, to say the least, completely bewildered.

Hope of Ground Floor Spoil*.

Such people do not know China. But they should be" told that there can be w> profits from any investments with th» Japanese to exploit a conquered country steeped with' the blood of the Chinese people, covered with the ashes of their homes, and reeking with opium and narcotics supplied by the Japanese to demoralise survivors.

Any attempt of the Japanese to exploit our country will be met by obstruction and sabotage and passive resistance until it will be entirely unprofitable f<* them to proceed with the materialisation of their dreams. For Americans to look forward to profit* by assist I Japanese in their hope* of exploit*™™ is merely to tell the £ & ahead so long as you let w ™ ground floor/'— (A-A-N-a-l