PORT CLOSED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22955, 5 February 1938, Page 15

PORT CLOSED

CHINESE ACTION , ' '' ' ■"') '. BOOM AT CANTON EXCITEMENT CAUSED FEAR OF INVASION FOREIGNERS MOVED By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright LONDON, Feb. 3 Canton is seething with excitement owing to a Chinese warning to all foreign ships to leave the harbour before night owing to a decision do close the boom across the Chukiang or Pearl River. All shipping at Canton is reported to have been bottled up following the closing of the boom. The Chinese recently assured Mr. Blunt, British Consul-General at Canton, that 24 hours' notice of the closing of the boom would be given to enable British women and children to he evacuated to Hongkong. Shipping companies, however, were not able to clear their vessels at such short notice and pleaded for an extension. Rumours of the imminence of a Japanese invasion of South China have prompted a declaration of martial law. Britons and' other foreigners have moved into the foreign Concessions on Shameen Island.'

MUNITIONS FOR JAPAN FRENCH FACTORY'S ORDER EMPLOYEES DEMONSTRATE CANCELLATION DEMANDED }•l ■ < (Received February 4,10.5 p.m.) ' ■ ' PARIS. Feb. 3 Taking advantage of a visit of Japanese experts the employees of an arms factory in the suburb of Le Vallois where armaments were being made for Japan, made an anti-Japanese demonstration. Later they sent a deputation to the Minister of War, M. Daladier, and requested a cancellation of the order. NEW GOVERNMENT JAPANESE PROPOSAL

(Received February 4, 6.45 p.m.) SHANGHAI, Feb. 4

General Matsui, who is a Chinese scholar with many contacts with Chinese politicians of earlier regimes, is initiating negotiations for the creation of a new Chinese Central Government at Nanking to be inaugurated immediately after the fall of Hsuchow. PRESS CENSORSHIP REFERENCE IN COMMONS British Wireless RUGBY, Feb. 3 With reference to the claim of the 'Japanese authorities to censor messages from Britain to British newspapers in Shanghai, the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden, told the House of Commons that he was not aware of any such telegram having' been censored. However, the British Consul-General in Shanghai, Mr. H. Phillips, had protested against the unreasonable censorship of two previous press telegrams from Shanghai.

JAPANESE CASUALTIES 20,000 TO DATE IN CHINA TOKIO, Feb, 3 The Minister of War, General Sugiysma, informed the Diet to-day that 20,000 Japanese had been killed in the Chinese hostilities to date. Prince Konoye, Prime Minister, said he had prepared a new mobilisation bill to put the nation on a war basis, as the conscription law was inadequate. DEADLY AIR RAID TOKIO, Feb. 3 The Domei news agency reports that 1000 soldiers were killed when Japanese airmen bombed 140 junks after the occupation of iPengfu, in the Suchwan Province.