CHINA'S ALLY.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 13857, 16 May 1938, Page 5

CHINA'S ALLY.

AID FROM RUSSIA DUNGHAI RAILWAY SEVERED. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, May 14. It is believed that there are now 1,000,000 Japanese troops in China, of whom 300,000 are immobilised fr mi conflict because they are watching the Soviet frontier. One Japanese soldier in China is costing five times as much as at home, irrespective of the swelling burden of transport, munitions, foodstuffs and raw materials.

Nevertheless, there is nothing to indicate a likelihood of mediation. Chinese finances are not overstrained to pay cash on delivery for some munitions, but the Soviet is allowing large quantities on long credits, encouraging the Chinese to fight the Japanese on its behalf. The Soviet is also supplying to China heavy transport ’planes and has established a chain of air bases, enabling constant supplies from the inland. The Chinese are .also procuring aeroplanes from America in addition to munitions from Europe. A Shanghai message says the Japanese announce that a mobile column severed the Lunghai railway, blowing up a bridge near Tangshan.

A message from Hankow says the Chinese are destroying the harbour works at Haichow and blowing up tracks and bridges, fearing a Japanese landing at the port as part of the campaign against Suchow. The British community at Shanghai is seething with indignation at the Japanese arrest and maltreatment of the bird-lover, Mr E. S. Wilkinson, who climbed the barbed wire in the Japanese sector to observe the nesting of birds. Mr Wilkinson complains that Japanese soldiers performed a war dance round him in the prison yard at the gaol and finally thrust a bayonet into his shoulder, just missing the lung. The Domei News Agency, according to a Tokio report, claims that the Japanese isolated Hsuchow and several Chinese divisions are faced with surrender or annihilation. The Japanese crossed the Yellow River at Ruyang and occupied Tsaochow, from which point the Lunghai railway is under gunfire. At Shanghai 100 civilians were killed and 500 wounded bv a Japanese air raid. Two hundred Japanese ’planes bombed Tientsin, Pukow and Shanghai railways at Hsuchow and ether centres, including Suhsien, where 300 refugees were killed at the Ivatalian Catholic mission.