“A HOLY WAR"

Evening Star, Issue 23492, 5 February 1940, Page 8

“A HOLY WAR"

JAPAN'S CHINA CAMPAIGN NO PEACE SHORT OF COMPLETE VICTORY Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright TOKIO, February 3. Baron Saito has resigned from the powerful Miuseito Party. While two minor parties demanded his expulsion from Parliament, the army leaders discussed a similar demand. Air Y. Hata, in the Diet, uncompromisingly answered Baron Saito. “ The China campaign,” he said, “ is a holy war, aiming at the extirpation of a pro-Communist, antiJapanese regime, and there can be no peace short of a complete victory. One hundred thousand have died without regret for the new order in Asia.” The War Office announces that Major-general Masao Nakamura was killed in action at Nanning on Christmas Day. The United Press Tientsin correspondent says that the British and French police on January 12 arrested some Chinese in connection with the recent discovery of nnexploded incendiary bombs in ' a Japanese-owned cinema. One of the captives is a woman, the principal of a Chinese school in the British Concession. The ‘ New York Times ’ Shanghai correspondent says; “ Advancing 25 miles within one day, the Japanese at 5.30 p.m. captured the Chinese base Pingyang and encircled the Chinese concentration except for a bottle neck of 15 miles across, through which the demoralised Chinese are pouring under constant artillery and machine-gun fire and aerial bombing. BOMBING OF HANAI-KUNMING RAILWAY AFFECT ON AMERICAN COMMERCE WASHINGTON, February 4. (Received February 5, at 8 a.m.) It is disclosed that prior to the bombing of the Hanoi-Kunming railway on February 2 the American Ambassador (Mr Grew) informed Tokio that the United States was concerned oyer the earlier bombing of the line, which was the last railway by which the United States was able to exchange goods with China. According to the Paris correspondent of the ‘ New York Times ’ Mr Grew is acting as an intermediary in the matter of the bombing. The French feel that much depends on whether the United States is willing to take the leadership of Western Powers in the Far East. The Shanghai correspondent of the ‘ New York Herald-Tribune ’ states that five French. 24 Annamese, and 82 Chinese were killed and injured. The French victims comprised two women, a child, and two railway employees. RAILWAY AGAIN BOMBED NEW YORK, February 4. (Received February 5, at 1.5 p.m.) According to Kunming dispatches 27 Japanese bombers participated in a further raid on the Hanoi-Kunming railway on Saturday and communication with additional sections of the line. Bombs were chiefly dropped on Kaiyuan yards, 100 miles from the French-Indochina border. The Japanese state that the raids will continue as long as the French permit the conveyance of Chinese military supplies.