JAP AIR RAIDS

Grey River Argus, 11 March 1939, Page 8

JAP AIR RAIDS

ON SEVERAL TOWNS ' Ichang Demolished [Aus. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] TOKIO, March 9. A field dispatch says that air units raided the Yungchang Liangchow, Lingliang, and Sianfu military establishments, and effectively bombed them. LONDON, March 9. Reuter’s Shanghai correspondent says that Ichang is almost completely in ruins, after air-raids. At. least 60 bombs were dropped, and there were 1,500 casualties. SHANGHAI, March 9. While Union Jacks were flying, Japanese war-planes bombed the English Baptist Mission and the Jenkin Robertson Hospital, at Sianfu, destroying the operating theatre, the X-ray department, and two wards. A Chinese nurse was killed. JAPANESE BUDGET. TOKIO, March 9. Parliament has unanimously passed the extraordinary military budget of £270,000,000, for the China campaign. ANGLO-U.S.A. BLOCKADE? JAPANESE DOUBT IT. TOKIO, March 9. Mr. Arita, in fhe Diet, said that the Government does not regard An-glo-American help to China in the nature of sanctions against Japan. An economic blockade was not easily achievable, and the grave consequences were well known to these Powers.

v Western Pacific JAPAN SEEKS COMMAND. WITHOUT AGGRESSION. TOKIO, March 9. “Japan has no intention of aiming at navy parity with England and America,” declared Rear-Admiral Kanazawa, Chief of the Admiralty Publicity Department. She aimed at maintaining a navy strong enough to meet the largest, naval force that any single foreign Power was hypothetically able to send, to the Far East. Japan’s object was to command the Western Pacific seas in order to facilitate the smooth execution of national policies. Her true ideal was one of non-menace and non-aggression. She wanted a fleet sufficient for defence, but not large enough to undertake offensive operations. This was the basis of the six-year plan building programme of £72,000,000. British packing FOR CHINESE CURRENCY. £5,000,000 GOVERNMENT GUARANTEE. RUGBY, March 8. Announcing in the House of Commons that the Government had agreed to give a £5,000,000 guarantee which would enable the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China to participate in the Stabilisation Fund for the support of Chinese currency, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, said: “The stability of the Chinese dollar is a matter of great importance to Britain, in view of our financial and economic relations with China. China achieved considerable success in hei’ efforts to maintain the convertibility of Chinese currency for trade transactions, to limit, its depreciation in exchange against sterling, and to keep the rate reasonably stable for many months. “China informed Britain it intended to continue its existing monetary policy and that as part of that policy it desires to establish a Stabilisation Fund of £10,000,000 in addition to its other reserves. China invited two Chinese Government banf»s to subscribe a total of £5,000,000 to the fund and the two British banks, namely the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and the Chartered Bank, to subscribe a further £5,000,000 between them.

“The British banks agreed to subscribe these amounts subject to receiving an undertaking from the Treasury to reimburse them for any loss that might be incurred when the fund was wound up. The arrangement would be that the fund would operate for 12 months but it could be continued for further periods of six months by agreement. If the necessity arose, however, the fund could be wound up at any earlier time.

“Britain would welcome the establishment of this Stabilisation Fund, the successful working of which would be of material assistance to British trade enterprise in China, and the Treasury has agreed, subject to legislative approval, to give to these banks the guarantee against loss for which they ask. A bill is being prepared and I hope to present it early next week.” PEKIN GOVERNMENT. ESTABLISHING NEW CURRENCY. LONDON, March 9. “The Times’s” Pekin correspondent says that, as a result of its failure to secure the wide circulation of the Federal Reserve currency, the Provisional Government has divided the country into two currency areas. The first consists of eleven towns in the Hopei, Shangtung, Shansi, and Honan Provinces, wherein the old currency will be illegal after March 8. The county elsewhere is regarded as a bandit zone, to which the new currency will be extended, “following the expansion of the Japanese military operations.” The old notes are still at par.