CHINA'S SUFFERING

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 116, 19 May 1938, Page 9

CHINA'S SUFFERING

ATROCITIES OF JAPAN

MISSIONARY'S VIEW OF WAR

(By Telegraph.) (Special to the "Evening Post.")

DUNEDIN, This Day.

! "Japanese atrocities in China have not been overstated by any means..The testimony of reliable eye-witnesses that has bqen retailed to me is such that most of it cannot be printed," said Mr. R. Davies, a missionary who is revisiting Dunedin after serving at Canton for 29 years.

Stationed at Canton, familiarly known as "the powder magazine of China," Mr. Davies is pessimistic as to what might happen to that- city if and when the Japanese forces capture it. The Cantonese have been recognised as the most patriotic section of the Chinese race, and whenever Japan threatened to invade China it was -the Cantonese residents who "made the most noise."

"Now that Japan is paying more attention to the south of China the possibility of Canton escaping an invasion is remote," said Mr. Davies.

"Practically daily over the last six months Japanese airmen have bombed important roads and railway line's between Hong Kong and Shanghai, means of communication which are really life lines. There has been very little 'let:up' in that bombing, and during that period air-raid alarms in Canton have only missed being sounded on' six days.

"The Japanese air bombing is not so much callous as careless," said Mr. Davies. "Flying at a great height, their missiles have only a small possibility of hitting their objective, with the result that senseless slaughter occurs."

The opinion of "the man in the street," Mr. Davies said, was one of confidence that China will win eventually, even though it be ten, twenty, or even fifty years hence.