"BEAT NAZIS FIRST”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 39, 17 February 1943, Page 5

"BEAT NAZIS FIRST”

CHINESE CRITICISM EQUIPMENT AND PLANES

WANTED (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Recd. 6 p.m.) Chungking, Feb. 15. The Chinese Press continues to reflect anxiety over the Casablanca decision to defeat the Nazis first. The Central News, commenting on Mr. Roosevelt's speech, says: “We can no longer conceal our vexation. We have watched a shortage of supplies to China and a wanton waste ot time in defeating the enemy in Asia. We can certainly endure more hardships and privations, but our allies should not watch our hardships and see our defenceless cities bombed with their hands in their pockets. Thw Allies should immediately comfort the Chinese with action and arms.” The Central News advocates a supreme war council in the Pacific to accelerate universal action.

The newspaper Takung Pao predicts that during the next nine months the Japanese might attack India, Russia and West China, and said that only an attack on Tokio could prevent these possibilities. A Chinese spokesman, commenting on Mr. Roosevelt’s speech, said that if additional aid was not forthcoming, China’s economic condition might deteriorate beyond recovery, and Japan might be so strengthened that it would take years before she would be defeated. The spokesman called on the Allies for more equipment and munitions, particularly planes, to bomb Japanese industries. Field-Marshal Sir John Dill and General Arnold, who visited the Middle East. India and China after the Casablanca conference, have arrived in Brazil, en route to Washington.