ARMIES MASSING ROUND PEKING.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 July 1937, Page 7

ARMIES MASSING ROUND PEKING.

4 -War Preparations In Tokio.

Chinese Army Prepare Defences. (By Telegraph-Pre&s Assn.-Copyright) Received Monday, 7.40 p.m. LONDON, July 18. The Tokio correspondent of the Times says the Japanese War Office has issued a statement in which it said Japan could not wait indefinitely for the fulfilment of the Chinese promises and must press for satisfaction. Military preparations for the first time were evident in Tokio to-day when fleets of requisitioned lorries were driven through the streets to the accompaniment of citizens’ flagwaving. Cabinet has made an allocation of ten million yen from the reserves for military purposes. The Daily Telegraph’s Peking correspondent says the Japanese troops in the neighbourhood of the city are being heavily reinforced at the rate of ten trains daily. This accounts for Japan’s hardening attitude. The Japanese are now hourly expected to begin an advance along the Peking-Hankow railMeanwhile the Chinese Twenty-ninth which the Japanese regard as particularly unfriendly, has built a formidable three-line trench system on the Peking plain north of Lukouchiao, but it does not possess artillery and other essential .. equipment. . The Daily Telegraph’s Nanking correspondent reports that Japanese aeroplanes machine-gunned Chinese trains on the Peking-Hankow railway, killing and wounding ten passengers. The Chinese Foreign Office protested to the Japanese Embassy, reserving the right to demand compensation for these illegalities.

Admission By Japan.

China Did Not Apologise.

Received Tuesday, 12.15 a.m. TIENTSIN, July 19. The Japanese military authorities now declare that the report that Sung Chen Yuan had agreed to the Japanese demands is premature. Sung merely called to pay his compliments. It. is estimated that there are 14,500 Japanese troops in Hopei Province. Four batteries of field artillery arrived yesterday night. The Domei News Agency of Tokio declares that the Chinese are concentrating troops in North China in defiance of Colonel Okido’s warning on Sunday. The “production” party of extreme Right Wingers affiliated to the Black Dragon Society have sent a letter to the British Embassy asserting that the Japanese action is based solely on self-defence and requesting Britain to refrain from intervention. A Nanking message says the Chinese reply to Japan is being drafted after a long-distance ’phone talk with Marshal Chiang Kai-shek, who is holidaying at Killing. It will insist on the respect of China’s territorial and sovereign rights. A Hong Kong message states that all British troops except one company will be withdrawn from Hanghaikwan and concentrated at Tientsin. Meanwhile the Embassy guards at Peking are being reinforced. .