BORDER CROSSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23669, 29 November 1938, Page 9

BORDER CROSSED

BY JAPANESE TROOPS BRITISH POST OCCUPIED LATER PERSUADED TO DEPART (United Press AssoclaUon) 'By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) HONGKONG, Nov. 27. Japanese troops entered British territory and occupied a British post on the border between China and Hongkong. British officers, after a long argument, persuaded them to return to Chinese territory.

GIFTS FOR JAPANESE SOLDIERS SCANDAL OVER FUNDS TOKIO, Nov. 28. (Received Nov. 29, at 0.15 a.m.) It is announced that patriotic organisations, in a recent house-to-house collection in Tokio of old woollens, netted over 350,000 kilogrammes, bringing 170,000 yen to be devoted to New Year gifts for soldiers. Meanwhile, a score of high officials of the National Federation of Young Men's Associations have resigned, due to a scandal involving speculations from 600,000 yen realised from the sale of various scrap materials collected. WEEK-END INCIDENTS BRITISH PROTEST LODGED LONDON, Nov. 28 (Received Nov. 29, at 0.45 a.m.) The Daily Telegraph's Hongkong correspondent understands that a protest was lodged with the Japanese following a series of week-end incidents bringing Hongkong perilously close to open conflict with the invaders. The Japanese entered British territory on November 26, occupied Humchun, bombarded Luwo, and shelled and machinegunned two British military posts, occupying one and hoisting the Japanese flag. They shelled a district half a mile inside the frontier and ordered the British to withdraw eight miles from the border to permit of occupation. They machine-gunned the British side of Shumchun River, killing many Chinese. Two detachments of British troops withdrew temporarily but reoccupied all the positions after refuting the Japanese claims by means of mans.

The Japanese are reported to be in the neighbourhood of Hongkong "Japan's new expedition against south China aims at isolating Hongkong, the British port through which China has maintained her last seaward connection with the outside world," states R. T. Barrett, formerly editor of the Hongkong Daily Press. "Since the outbreak of hostilities with Japan it is through Hongkong that China has been drawing the bulk of her war supplies and carrying on her export trade. As Japan is not officially at war with China, she does not enjoy belligerent rights, and the British naval authorities have firmly refused to tolerate any interference with British ships carrying cargo into Hongkong. No right of search has been admitted—nothing more than a demand to see identification papers " The Japanese Navy has thus had the mortification of seeing quantities of war material pouring into the British colony for transhipment inland to the Chinese armies. They have watched the same ships leave with their holds filled with the exports by which China's credit has been maintained. It is for these rqasons that the Navy Office of Tokio has long been urging either a declaration of war or an expedition against South China. " The present expedition, launched from the wilds of Bias Bay, a famous haunt of pirates, aims at throwing a cordon round Hongkong and blocking both rail and river traffic It seeks to reduce Hongkong from one of the greatest ports of the world to its original status of an isolated island.

" In advancing from Bias Bay the invaders will have to contend with mountainous country, alternating with stretches of rice fields These will be dry at the present time, but offer difficulties to a mechanised force. Of roads there are none."