CANTON FALLS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 9

CANTON FALLS

JAPANESE ENTER

AMAZING RAPIDITY

NO RESISTANCE

REPORTED MEDIATION IN

TOKIO

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright,

LONDON, October 21.

Reuters' Hong Kong correspondent states that the Japanese vanguard is reported to have entered Canton this afternoon. All the Chinese high officials have departed, and factories and public utility plants have been blown up. The Chinese troops abandoned the city at midnight. Foreign militarists in Hong Kong are amazed at the rapidity of the Japanese entry to Canton, and are surprised that the Chinese did not resist in the natural hill defences. It is surmised that the real explanation is that all the picked troops are concentrated at Hankow. The electric power plant was among the buildings blown up at Canton. A fierce fire is sweeping the river bank opposite Shameen. Thousands of Chinese are in flight, many leaving in sampans downstream, i LIKE A BESIEGED CITY. | The Canton correspondent of the British United Press says that the Japanese vanguard, consisting of 3000 J mechanised troops, accompanied by tanks, completed the occupation of the eastern section of the city by 4.40 p.m., having outstripped the main body of 30,000 infantry, who arrived later by railway from Tsengtsing after defeating the Chinese in this locality. The invaders have not yet attempted to occupy the western and central districts, from which the evacuation continues. The capital has taken on the appearance of a besieged city, in which the 1100 foreigners, including Britons, are determined to remain. The complete fall of Canton will isolate Hong Kong from the remainder of China. The retreating Chinese dynamited the Pearl Rivet bridge, valued at £425,000. CHINESE RETREAT FROM HANKOW. A Tokio message states that air reconnaissance showed that the Chinese defending Hankow are re-1 treating on all fronts. The Shanghai correspondent of the British United Press says that reliable quarters suggest that British and German diplomats in Tokio broached the i question of mediation in the SinoJapanese conflict. Japan is reported to have neither rejected nor accepted the suggestions, but to have expressed a desire for peace before the end of j the year. A British diplomatic mis-j sion is reported to be awaiting an. escort to Hankow to confer with! ! General Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese! Commander-in-Chief, 4 but the latest j reports indicate that he will be leaving Hankow shortly. Hong Kong suggests that he has gone to Changsha. Canton, the great commercial metropolis of South China, is the original capital and the outlet of the Basin of the Sikiang, or West Elver, which is the focus of the life of South China. The Sikiang is formed by the convergence of a large number of headwater streams rising in the highlands of Kweichow and Yunnan and affording westward navigation for about 1000 miles. The city is 1 not placed on the main stream of. the Sikiang, a northern tributary, the Canton or Pearl River. It is joined by a branch of the Pei-king from the north, the valley of which affords the easiest route from Canton to the Central Basin of Hankow. For a long time Canton was the sole ' Chinese port for foreign trade. The commercial importance of the city has been affected by the rise of modern Hong Kong, a deep-water port. - Modern ocean vessels cannot reach closer than 12 miles below Canton. It is linked by rail with Kowloon, opposite Hong Kong, there is a local line to Samshui, and also the vital rail link with Hankow, over which most of China's imported war supplies have been carried. It also holds an important arsenal, which was partly destroyed in 1920, but was placed in working order again within a year. A large shipment of American machinery was imported in 1921, and the capacity of the arsenal in 1932 was estimated at about 700,000 cartridges per month, 25 rifles per day, eight Vickers machineguns per month, an unknown num-

ber of automatic pistols, and some smokeless powder. Recent reports declare that there has been an enormous increase in the productive capacity of the arsenal. The Customs trade of Canton in the past has ranked fifth among Chinese ports, . after Shanghai, Dairen, Hankow, and Tientsin.