The Times FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1941. Our Chinese Ally

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 121, 23 May 1941, Page 6

The Times FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1941. Our Chinese Ally

The see-saw war in China continues to favour neither one side nor the other. Last week we were regaled with highlycoloured stories of Japanese offensives on a thousand-mile front in which Marshal Chiang Kai-shek’s forces were said to have been decimated and encircled. But to-day comes news that the indomitable Chinese have hit back hard and effectively. They are reported to have broken through the Japanese cordon in one important sector and are now engaged in a counter encircling movement. In another sector they claim to have recaptured the strategic town of Chuki and declare that the Japanese are retreating to the north.

"While the attention of dwellers in these remote parts of the earth is naturally focussed on the Middle East at the moment, the importance of events in the Far East should not be overlooked. For it is that part of the world-wide battle front that provides the most imminent menace to the safety of our island home. We in New Zealand are vitally linked with the fortunes of the war in China, and Marshal Chiang Kai-shek and his brave men are just as much the defenders of our freedom as are the men who are fighting our battles on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Statements made in high Japanese circles during the past month or so make it quite clear that no serious southward move can be made while the large Japanese armies are immobilised in China. This seemingly interminable war in which a million Japanese soldiers are penned up long distances from their bases, constantly harried by guerillas over their vast and vulnerable lines of communications, and constantly having to meet costly attacks by the tireless Chinese forces must be bleeding Japan white. One of the best evidences of the difficulties faced by Japan is provided by the spasmodic nature of her offensives. Apparently she can never drive home any advantage gained, and each time the Chinese come back with deadly persistency. This war is a war of slow attrition. China can be beaten in every battle and still win the war. That is, to the Japanese, the frightening truth of an ill-conceived adventure which has cost her so many thousands of lives and has sapped her national resources to the point of exhaustion. Every effort she has made so far to “liquidate s ’ the China problem has added to her financial and other difficulties. She has to maintain large armies along a front of about a thousand miles, and she has more than two thousand miles of coast to patrol. She went into Indo-China to prevent supplies from getting into China, and for the same reason she had to extend her operations into the southern provinces. At the present time she has about a million men bogged—to use the forceful word of the Chinese Ambassador in London —and while they may be able to get part of their supplies from the country they have to draw military stores from home ports. Three-quarters of Japan’s huge annual expenditure is for military purposes, and the expenses have been increased appreciably by the military occupation of parts of Indo-China. There must have been very frank talks lately between the financial authorities and the military heads, and while an expansion of military operations cannot be entirely ruled out the probability is that Japan will seek to improve her position rather by economic pressure than by warlike action.

Praiseworthy Effort When a woman appealing for exemption for her son at the No. 3 Armed , Forces Appeal Board stated that she I and her sou milked 100 cows twice a ! > day, rising at 3 a.m. and taking live hours to do the milking, the chairman (Mr. A. Coleman, S.M.) said the board 1 had no hesitation in allowing the appeal. “That must bo something approaching a record,'' he observed, “and it is refreshing to meet people like you. The basis of the average appeal i*. 2a uttwm ' 1

No Shortage of Married Farm Hands According to a statement made by Mr. C. E. Taylor at a sitting of the No. 3 Armed Forces Appeal Board in Palmerston North, there are plenty of married couples available for farm management. Mr. Taylor stated that in response to an advertisement for a married couple to manage a farm with between 50 and 60 cows, in the Rongotea district, no fewer than 40 applications were received and the applicants were j mostly of a good, type and quite suit* aUW