STRICKEN CHINA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23170, 17 October 1938, Page 14

STRICKEN CHINA

HEROIC RESISTANCE ATTITUDE OF BRITAIN APATHY CONDEMNED [by TELEGRAPH —OWN' correspondent] CirRISTCHTJRCH, Saturday The apathetic policy of Britain toward the Japanese war of aggression in China was condemned in an address given to the Canterbury Travel Club by Mr. Claude Evans, of Christchurch, who has returned from a visit to the war-stricken areas. To show the actual conditions Mr. Evans told of a train journey into the inferior which he was able to make only by posing as a novelist in search of copy. From Canton to Hangkow,, temporary seat of Government, he said, the only line of communication was now tho railway. Three times a day this stretch o£ line .was bombed, yet, in the face of such warfare, the trains continued to run. The maintaining of this thousand miles of railway, he added, 'under such conditions, was an achievement which would live in history*

Under Chiang Kai-shek's administration amazing organisation had been brought about in the villages along' the line. After each attack the villagers repaired the damage, and carried on amid ruined homes and shattered settlements. ' , Frequently the train on which Mr. Evans was a passenger was unable to pTOc.eed because of lines destroyed; frequently all passengers took refuge in the hills; once there was a' three hours' stoD in a tunnel in darkness while the lines ahead and behind were being bombed.

Mr. Evans spoke graphically of the sufferings of the civilian population, of the lines of refugees, the small children who with families destroyed pleaded for help when it was not possible to gjve it •them,-the sacking of Nanking with its indescribable tortures and horrors, the lack of defending aeroplanes, and the machine-gunning of villagers from the. air. Everywhere, said Mr. Evans, the question canld to everyone's lips, '•'What is Britain doing to help' another great democracy?" And the answer - was "Nothing." "•''ln July when a loan to China of £2Q,()00 l 000 was suggested, • vested interests stopped such help," he added. "China needs no men, but she v needs money. We ourselves may suffer tho same brutal atrocities committed on this pciice-loving mttion iri a later day. Yet Britain continues to stand by. Unless some move is made within the next three months Hongkong and other cities will suffer the sain© shocking fate as Nanking and Canton. And when the English go out of China they will go forever. The Chinese' are a wonderful and gracious race, but they do not forget."