WAR PREPARATIONS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 29, 28 October 1937, Page 10

WAR PREPARATIONS

Shanghai Marshals Its Resources FOOD-SUPPLY PROBLEM (The following article comes from ' Miss Eleanor M. Hinder, B.Sc., a zesponsible official who has lived in. China for a number of years. Miss Hinder is in charge of the factory inspection work for the municipality of Greater Shanghai, whose department is Tesponsible for many xesearch problems along industrial lines. She had been appointed to represent China at the International Labour Conference in Geneva in June.) Sunday saw the calling together of the first of the Emergency Cpmmittees ■vvhich the Shanghai Municipal Council had planned should the occasion arise. I had worked on the Fuel and Food Committee in 1932, and in consequence I was put on that very significant one again. It was early apparent that some steps would have to be taken to safeguard the rice supply for the settlement itself. Rice is aceustomed to reach the Settlement from the interior of China by junks coming down the Soochow creekjvbut the news of the outbreak of hostilitiea caused the boats further off to retrace their steps and only those almost into Shanghai would, it was known frompast experienee take the risk of coming in. Thereafter the course of supply from the interior wouia be cut off. Though both^ the French Concession and the Chinese areas in Shanghai have large warehouses in which Tice is stored, tho Settlement has no granaries, and in consequence it was comparatively much less well off than the other areas. The only considerable rice stocks of which we cotdd learn in the Settlement were in the area then occupied by Japanese and the prospects of getting this into currency wero then, and still are, quite un* certain. In consequence the food committee early recommended to the council- that it would be necessary t0 imporl rice from Saipon. This step was taken Throa. amo,int^'"r in all to 7,00Q ifons have been ordered. This committee 's work is typical oi that other emergency committees have been doing— plans to safeguard the city's water and electricity supply in the event of either the power plant or the water works or the mains being put out of action by the bombing or shelling which has been daily occurrring, consideration of the possibilities of the nse of gas, and the laying in of stocks of antidotes to the most commonly types of gas, a committee watching the financial situation, most precarious in the first f ew days when banks closed and ho cheques would be accqpted, all shops demanding cash, and cash was unobtainable; plans for the bringing ih of coal for the power plant, which had greatly reduced its load, hut which was already drawing on reserves, and pust a thousand and one other things, which an emergency of this kind places on the city. Now, after two weeks, wo are beginning to feel the pinch; fresh fruit has given out and there will be no more coming in. All ships have ceased to call at the mouth of the river even 12 miles from Shanghai — for here there is a large concentratioa of Japanese war vessels actively engaged, and the risk to shipping is great. You will have read that the British and American Governments took the lead in advising with the urgency almost of command all British and American womep and children to leave Shanghai. Other nationajities followed, and during the last two weeks a total of some 6,000 WesterneTs and 12,000 Japanese have gone. It was by no means easy for many people to pull out of their homes and go, and many jibbed who did not wish to leave, but felt the necessity oi standing by official orders. This war which is not a war, waged by the Japanese against the outrageous Chinese, as one of the Japanese spokeamen so unhappily put it, has been waged by Japan largely by the Navy and Air Force, though there have been, of course, many sanguinary encounters on land. Right from the mouth of the "Whangpoo Rivor at Woosung up to Shanghai there has been * string of warships, decks clearod for action, whose large calibred guns have pounded the Chinese positions on both the Shanghai side and the Pootung side of the river. China has, of course, no heavy artillery to match the might of naval guns, and in this sense the fight in this area has been a very unequal one. China has faster air planes than Japan. In addition to the bombing of August 16 there have been two other occasions when as the resulfc of bombs several hundred civilians have bees killed and wounded. The first of thess was last Monday, the 23rd. I was in the American Club opposite the council office having lunch. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion, ifc seemed in the next street. I hastened to the dow on the fifth floor where I was and looked out. The clouds of black smoke rising told me that a major tragedy had occurred at the busiest shopping cCntre in town, where three large department stores owned by Australi&niDorn Chinese have done a thriving business. Of this you will have read. But what I did' not know at the time was that, less than half a block away from where I was there had fallon a huga 1000-lb. bomb which failed to explode. The identity of these two bombs is yet in disput". They dropped from an air - plane fl; ag very high and each sids 'blames the other. I only know that had it fallen on the street intersection at the corner of Foochow and Kiangsee roads instead of 100 yards away, and had it exploded, it would have wrecked the Municipal Council on one corner, the building in which is the United States Consulate on another, and the Metropole Hotel, which was the temporary headquarters ofthe British Confciilate, on a third. It dropped, ironieally enough, into the top floor of a godown — a warehouse — in which I kad stored lice, Teseued from the compound of a British company, one of whose buildings had been burned ttro d>y» be*

. . . .ir.i i fore. I had spcnt two day3 rescuing that rice, only to have this happen. Fortunately the bomb did not explode, and the loss in rice is not very large. But perhaps the most dastardly of all the happenings took place yesterday, Saturday August 29; suddenly I heard planes again and saw a fleet of eighfc Japanese up. Thpn I heard explosions and saw the black pall' rise in three places at which I rightly judged to be tho South Railway Station. Again you will have seen what was involved in the thing — the senseless sacrifice of hundreds of lives of poor refugees, who had waited for days to get a train, hoping one might go which would take thejn out of the war zone- I think I shall never forgive this crime against humanity. There was no reason for the bombing of this station; the breaking of bridges would have put tho railway out of action just as effectively. Two days before the Japanese had said that soldiers were leaking into that part of the city, and if they were, Japan would be forced to bomb. But she promised that she would give due warning. She did not. It is more than doubtful if there were more than a handful of soldiers there. The cruel, cruel intentional destruction of poor helpless people — I cannot restrain my hitterness at this. The latest announcement that Japan will institute a "Peacetime blockade" of China 's coastal shipping virtually cuts this city off from supplies. Japan may even try to stop foreign shipping, though she has not yet announc.ed this policy. The Yangtsze is barred t o shipping by a boom across tho river, prevenling anv ships passing. Japan ean only attaelc Nanking thereforo by land. But we are in for a iong struggle. There is qno grain of comfort, albeit

an academic one. The Municipal Council did not make the mistake it did in 1932 of declaring a state of emergency which would have given Japan, as oue of the Power here, the righfc to defend the Northern sector. Instead, the help of the Powers other than Japan was independently sougbt and obtainod. The Settlement North and East was virtually given over to fighting, but in the rOsponsibility form this fighting, for using this part of the Settlement as a base of military operations, the Council has no part. At least we learned this lesson from 1932. Death stalits abroad. It is impossible for the people to keep in off the streets. The crowding is unbelievable. It all adds to the strain and will not materially lessen. Truckloads of refugees are continually being brought in from stricken areas. There is a great oppression in these so great numbers, quite apart from the question of the dangors of the war itself. As you will realise, provision of the people's food is essential if we are to avoid intOrnal Tioting, possibly as great a danger aa from the war itself.