JAPANESE ALMS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20928, 6 January 1938, Page 6

JAPANESE ALMS

JEALOUSY OF BRITAIN Experiences in two of the danger zones of the world, the Chinese and Spanish coasts, were recounted by Captain R. H. C. Hargraves, who reached Auckland on six months leave by the Narbada. Captain Hargraves, who was previously with the Union Steam Ship Company, has for the last four years been with the Moler Line, a British company operating from Shanghai. Trading along the Chinese coast, the Pacific seaboard of Siberia, and to Japanese ports, Captain Hargraves is closely acquainted with the various localities where the conflict between the Chinese and Japanese is proceeding. During a recent stay at Kobe, he said, he could not help noticing a great deal of anti-British feeling, particularly in the newspapers, one of which described London as the centre of world Communism, with Honk Kong as its Eastern outpost. When the antiCommunist pact was signed by Japan Kobe was gaily decorated with tne flags of Japan, Germany, and Italy, the occasion being celebrated as a national event. Japan was jealous of British interests in China, Captain Hargraves considered, and the present hostilities were designed to take control of Customs and banks along the Chinese coast. If she wished to maintain her position in the East, Britain would have to make the next move. There would be no point in providing an armed base at Hong Kong it there were no British interests in China to protect.