POSSIBLE TROUBLE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20625, 5 August 1941, Page 5

POSSIBLE TROUBLE

BRITISH PRECAUTIONS MALAYA GARRISONS THAILAND FRONTIER (RTec. Tel Copyright—United Press AbsH.) (Reed. Aug. 5, 9 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 4. The Saigon correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that Britain has placed thousands of tire finest troops, mainly Australians and the best Indian regiments, on the Malaya-Thailand border in the expectation of trouble with the Japanese. They are fully equipped, not only with tanks and heavy artillery, but also with secret weapons specially designed for jungle warfare. Everywhere along the border are British forces, including air force units. The British authorities are preparing accommodation for thousands of additional Australian infantrymen. Well-informed circles in Bangkok assert that Japan is demanding bases in Thailand and access to raw materials. In the meantime the Thai armies are pouring into the border zones. Additional Jap, Troops Reports from Saigon state that the Japanese Vice-Admiral Niimi has arrived at Saigon.to confer with the French military and naval officials. Thousands of additional Japanese troops have arived and also large stocks of munitions and gasoline. Military observers in Shanghai regard the garrisoning of 40,000 Japanese troops and 400 planes in southern Indo-China as too large for purposes other than expansion. A Singapore report states that abnormally large re-exports of sugar from the Dutch Indies to Thailand, where Japan is a big buyer, have resulted in Malaya introducing a quota system fixed at the full average of reexports over the period from 1919 to 1940. The Hsinldng correspondent of the Domei Agency says that Manchukuo has rationed rice, ‘flour, dairy products, salt, sugar, matches, cotton goods and rubber shoes in order to stabilise distribution. SQUADRON REPORTED (Reed. Aug. 5, noon) SEIGON, Aug. 4. Unofficial reports, regarding which the correspondent of the Associated Press of America is unable to obtain confirmation, state that a . British naval squadron, including the battleship Warspite has been sighted in the Gulf of Siam.