China Saves World From Japanese Menace

Northern Advocate, 8 July 1938, Page 9

China Saves World From Japanese Menace

-SYDNEY BUSINESSMAN

[Per Press Association. Copyright.] WELLINGTON, This Day. “China has saved the world from the menace of Japan." said Mr L. S. Gumming, a Sydney business man, when interviewed in Wellington yesterday. “China’s defence of her country is steadily defeating the wealth fif Japan, .both in man power and finance. Japan will not be able tc undertake another major war for many years. Wo of Australia and New Zealand owe China a special debt of gratitude." Mr Gumming said he had travelled through Korea and Manchukuo to Tientsin within four days of the incidents which precipitated the present hostilities. He saw train loads of munitions and equipment, cavalry and infantry, and guns being hurried down to Tientsin. It gave him the impression that Japan was putting into fulfilment a carefully prepared plan.

“There will be no open door for trade if Japan subjugates China, - ’ continued Mr Gumming. "The Japanese are the greatest obstructionists in the world. They will secure trade expansion for themselves by closing it' down for the rest of the world. That is what happened in Manchukuo, and it is what is happening at Tientsin and the parts of the coast in Japanese hands. "If it is the aim of Japan to crush the Communist doctrine, for the purpose of which she claims that she 5s dominating China, why does she not start with its source in eastern Russia, only 600 miles from the west coast of Japan, and much more dangerous to her than China?

“’I do not think Japan will conquer China. Mr Ray Chang, private secretary to Marshal Chiang Kaishek, told me that Chinese were unlikely to be able to defend the coast against the powerful Japanese navy and army, but inland they were prepared for determined resistance, and their armies were better than the Japanese over imagined.”