MASS OFFENSIVE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 24 January 1939, Page 5

MASS OFFENSIVE

BEING PREPARED BY JAPAN LAST DESPERATE EFFORT TO WIN' ENORMOUS REINFORCEMENTS POURING IN CIIIANG KAI-SHEK CONFIDENT OF VICTORY ’ > -By Eitotrio Telegraph—Copyrightl (.Received 24th January. 9.0 a.m.) LONDON. 23rd January. The Hone Konf correspondent of the “Daily Herald’' says that Japan is preparing for a desperate effort to crush China, e.nd is pouring in enormous reinforcements. Her armies arc being stationed for a mass offensive on all fronts, supported by air bombings of all cities, irrespective of sire. Meanwhile General Chiang Kaishek declares that Ji>.pan is increasingly embedding herself in the quagmire and that China’s victory is daily nearer. His appeal for additional men and money was met with a nation-wide response.

OCCUPIED TERRITORY

TWICE THE AREA OF JAPANESE EMPIRE TOKIO. 22nd January. The Minister of War, General Itagaki. told the Diet that the territory which Japan had so far occupied in China was twice the area of the Japanese Empire. He estimated the Chinese casualties since the outbreak of the war at 2.000.000. of whom more than 800,000 were dead. About 51.000 Japanese had been killed.

EPIDEMIC OF MALARIA

OVER 1.000.000 CASES REPORTED (Received 24th January. 11.45 a.m.) CHUNGKING, 23rd January. Over a million cases of malignant malaria are reported from Fukien. Between 10 and 30 per cent, of the population is affected in the south-west provinces. There are 12.000 cases at Anshi, 66,000 at Chingchiang. and 57.000 at Hsiaotien

CHINA’S CAUSE PLEADED

AUSTRALIAN WOMAN AT WASHINGTON ! BOYCOTT OF JAPAN URGED I WASHINGTON. 22nd January. I Australia's unofficial representative, j Miss Ruby Rich, pleaded China’s cause, | at a conference on the cause and cure i of war, in a speech even more impas- ! sioned than that of China's own deleI gate. Both won support for a boycott of Japan, amid great enthusiasm. Miss 1 Rich said: "We in Australia are definitely opposed to Mr Neville Chamberlain’s policy. The people are formulating their own policies. We are boycotting aggressor nations' goods, the workers are also striking against the shipping of arms to Japan-” She added that Australian peace proponents were suporting four angles of a single programme —preservation of the sancity of treaties, disarmament, collective security, and settling of international grievances by arbitration. Mrs M. A. Schalit, of Sydney, better known under her maiden name of Ruby Rich, is a noted feminist leader. Before her marriage to Dr. Schalit in 1937, Miss Rich spent eight years abroad as liaison officer for the Australian Federation of Women Voters, of the board of which she is a member. She took a prominent part in feminist movements in London and Geneva.