RUSH TO LEAVE NANKING

Chronicle (Levin), 3 December 1948, Page 5

RUSH TO LEAVE NANKING

( N.Z.P.A, -

-Reuter*

Government Preparing To Evacuate Communist Threat To Capital Grows

ooxn'riaht)

Received Friday, 10.20 a.m, ' HANKJNG, December 2. Despite denials to the eontrary, the Government is preparing to evacuate the capital. The steps include the actual boxing up and removal of Government flies and documents and the evacuation of civil , servants5 dependants to Canton and other southern cities. It is believed that the Goverpment issued the denials for local consumption to bolster up mprale. Thirty-eight diplomatic missions received assurances that the Government w.as not evacuating, but they are taking precautions against a sudden departure.

The Chinese Government today offered to provide facilities for; members of foreign diplomatic missions and their dependants wishing to evacuate Nanking in the face of the present military situation. ' The financial market sagged in | Shanghai today foliowing rumours! that the Central Bank of Ghinaj was shipping out its gold bullion. ' Thousands of people at Nanking'si central railway station today | scrambled to buy tickets for trainsj that would take them away from! the Communist-threatened capital, says William Parrott, the New Zealand Press Association-Reuter correspondent. Long lines of people three or four deep stretched across the broad foyer into the street. Blackmarket operators did un-l precedented business in purchasingj places in the queues. ! A station official said that thej position was daily growing more| difficult to handle and some clerks

had been attacked and beaten by impatient travellers. On the remainder of the foyer and platform space sat thousands of others waiting for trains which WPtild take them to the comparative" safety 'of Shanghai. One thousand people are leaving daily on each of the eight expresses. Along the streets of Nanking are moying ssores of Jorries, cars and jeeps weighed down with the household effects of fleeing citizens. Pianos, refrigerators, mattresses, radios and a host of other effects are being sold at ridiculously low prices to obtain ready cas.hAltogether 141 Europeans, mostly British, left Tientsin today aboard the British steamer Wingsang. The vessel did not enter the harbour, fearing trouble from Nationalist soldiers trying to make their way southward. The evacuees were carried by launch to the Wingsang outside the harbour.