BETWEEN TWO FIRES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18056, 5 April 1933, Page 7

BETWEEN TWO FIRES

TROOPS’ PREDICAMENT

RISK OF FURTHER FIGHTING

LONDON, March 2d,

In a message to the Daily Mail from Tokio, Mr. (J. Ward Price tells of an unhappy predicament in which the Chinese troops garrisoned on the Great vVuil find themselves.

If the Japanese troops advance the Chinese must stay at their posts. In their rear their compatriots have been ordered to fire on them if they retreat. The Japanese higher command, tired of Chinese sniping and threatened night attacks, the Chinese relying for immunity on the Japanese undertaking not to advance beyond the Great Wall, has sent General Okarnura to urge the Government to agree to the Japanese advancing to establish a clear zone beyond the wall. The Government is reluctant to authorise the advance, owing to the risk of international complications.

Tho Chinese will he to blame in tho event of a resumption of the conflict, says the special correspondent of the Daily Mail in Pekin. Their communiques announce that 4500 Japanese have been killed, 7000 wounded and 10,500 captured.

This total exceeds the full strength of the Japanese in Jeliol Province. The reports induce belligerency in the Chinese public, and may possibly compel Chinese officials to save their faces by hostilities which would lead to the Japanese occupation of North China.

A Chinese whoso farm was bombed said it was nothing compared to the activities of Tang Yu-Lin’s retreating soldiers.