CHINA'S PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 June 1941, Page 6

CHINA'S PROBLEMS

STRATEGY IN WAR AGAINST JAPAN GREAT RESOURCE SHOWN IN MANY SPHERES. ADDRESS AT ROTARY CLUB. The weekly luncheon meeting of the Masterton Rotary Club was held at the Y.M.C.A. today, the president, Mr P. F. Fagan, presiding. Mr T. A. Cunningham was a guest of the club.

The speaker for the day was Miss Agnes Moncrief!. who is on the national staff of the Y.W.C.A. of China and who recently returned after eleven years' work in that country. Miss Moncrief!. whose home town is Carterton, is a fluent speaker and the account of her impressions of life and conditions m China was listened to with tne keenest interest. In the course of her address, Miss Moncrief! said that the Chinese strategy of drawing the'Japanese armies into the interior of China, whore thenlines of communication would be long, thin and vulnerable, had proved very successful. “The Japanese find themselves in areas where they cannot use their mechanised units to advantage and the prolonging of the war has caused a very serious economic situation in Japan," Miss Moncrief! continued. "Financial reserves are all but exhausted and the American embargo on oil and scrap iron is forcing Japan to turn desperately to other sources of supply. She cannot withdraw from China without serious loss of prestige and she cannot remain without serious financial crisis.

“China also finds herself hard pressed, but foreign loans from Britain, America and Russia, regular remittances from overseas Chinese, and the development of arsenals within her own borders, are all in her favour. Her army of 2.000,000 is better trained and equipped than at the beginning of the war and her army medical services are more adequate. Her great problems are .the maintenance of a united political front and the securing of supplies from abroad in face of an effective Japanese blockade of her entire coast.

"In spite of the war the Chinese Government is still making substantial grants to universities in which the professional and technical leaders of the future are being trained. Thousands of miles of highways have been built, new railways are open and others are under construction. The two groat supply routes to China’s western provinces—the Burma Road to the south and the Red Route to the north-west — have been opened since the war, remote provinces are being developed and cities of the west are growing with mushroom speed. The vast strength that lies dormant in the masses of the people is being roused by an educational movement that reaches the most isolated sections of the country. The industrial life of China, shattered by the war and by the Japanese occupation of all the large industrial centres and the most important lines of communication, is being steadily rebuilt 1 in the western provinces, mainly I through the rapid development of producers’ co-operatives, which are making available supplies of commodities essential to military and civilian life. Morale is high, Chinese resourcefulness meets problem after problem, resistance and reconstruction go hand in' hand to 1 meet the exigencies of war.” On the motion of Mr R. Lambert, a hearty vote of thanks was passed to Miss Moncrief!’ for her interesting and informative talk.