“DEEP IN THE MIRE”

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 July 1939, Page 9

“DEEP IN THE MIRE”

JAPANESE IN CHINA.

[per press association.]

AUCKLAND, July 13.

“The Japanese will lose the war in China, and even they know it,” said Mr F. Kosik, manager of the Czech Skoda Company’s office at Canton, on his arrival on a holiday visit to New Zea-i land by the Tasman. They aie get-| ting into worse trouble every day, but they are so deep in the mire that they cannot leave. They are hoping for some miracle to happen.” Mr Kosik speaks with the authority oE one who has lived in the heart of the war zone throughout the conflict. At Canton he lived through more than Vi year of constant air laids, the binning of the city by the departing Chinese, and the subsequent Japanese occupation. He has vivid memories of the air raid period, while his photographs taken in the city during that time give an arresting insight into the frightfulness of modern warfare. “Always there were air raids, day after day, sometimes three and four, times a day, from August, 1937, until last October,” Mr Kosik said. He had several narrow escapes. Once he was about to cross a bridge when Japanese aeroplanes came over, concentrating their attack on it. They missed the bridge, but bombs falling along the route he was about to take killed 90 Chinese. . The evacuation of the city when the Chinese retreated was an anxious time for all foreign residents- The commercial centre of the city was set on fire, causing more material dam-

age than all the air raids. Foreign residents concentrated on saving the British and French concessions on an island in the river from the fire, and streams of water were constantly played on the facades of buildings on tho river front. With the withdrawal of the Chinese police and soldiers, lawlessness broke out throughout the city and surrounding area, Mr Kosik added. His' house, which was outside the city, was looted by bandits. Subsequently the Japanese took possession of it, and be lived thereafter in the British concession. Canton to-day was but a shadow of its former . self. Formerly a city of 2,500,000 it now had only about 200,000 people. Only the lowest classes, beggars and rickshaw pullers, had returned after the evacuation. The moneyed class had abandoned the city. “Better to be a beggar in Hong Kong than a merchant under the Japanese,” a former wealthy Chinese told Mr Kosik. Tho office at Canton was not connected with the armament branch of tho concern, Mr Kosik said. It handled the erection of factories, and had built there sugar works, a -brewery, a paper mill, a power plant, and a number of locomotives for the Chinese Government. Several of the factories were damaged or destroyed in the air raids. With the withdrawal of the Chinese little business remained.