FAR EAST VISIT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23191, 10 November 1938, Page 14

FAR EAST VISIT

AIE VIEW OF FIGHTING REFUGEES IN HONGKONG AUCKLANDERS* EXPERIENCES

An extensive lour of the Orient, during which they visited both China and Japan and witnessed from the air desultory fighting, was made recently by Mr. and Mrs. B. S. Waters, of Auckland, who returned from Sydney by the Wanganella yesterday. Mr. Waters is governing director of Atwaters Piano Company, Limited. Crowded with refugees, who had increased the normal population by 1.000,000 people, Hongkong afforded many pitiable sights, Mr. Waters said. Streets were crowded day and night by people who had no shelter, and relief camps for the refugees were now in progress of construction. Surprisingly, there were no signs of damage due to war in Shanghai itself, Mr. Waters added. Only 20 miles away, however, was a battlefield, deserted after the struggle of a year ago. A curfew was in force in Shanghai, everybody being required to bo indoors by midnight.

" There is very little military activity in the city itself," ho continued. "Between Shanghai and Japan, however, our ship passed 63 troopships, including over 20 in a line. Japan is pouring troops into China at the rate of thousands a day." Business in "Japan was suffering severely as a result of the war with China, Mr. Waters said. The importation of luxuries had been stopped, and there were very few tourists visiting the country.

A national black-out week, during which the entire country was under strict discipline, took place while Mr. Waters was in Tokio. He said that there ivas first a partial black-out with all motor-car and other lights covered with crepe, and then a complete black-out, everybody being obliged to remain indoors, and warned against showing any lights. _ " It was the most eerio thing I have ever experienced," he continued. "There was not a light nor a sound, except that of the aeroplanes overhead. The only light shown was a single searchlight in each town." Mr. Waters said that tourists were eagerly welcomed and well treated in Japan. His party had onlv_ one anxious period, during the tense international situation in September, when he bad an aeroplane standing by to leave the country if necessary. Japan was very pro-German, and the newspapers seemed to indicate that she would side with Germany in the event of war. There was no sign, however, of active autiBritisli feeling.