HOLD ON SHANGHAI

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 December 1938, Page 7

HOLD ON SHANGHAI

GREAT DEFENSIVE WORKS BEING BUILT INDICATION OF JAPANESE POLICY. REFUSAL TO REOPEN YANGTSE RIVER. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. LONDON, December 5. The “Daily Herald” says that Japan is building powerful fortifications, an air field and a vast military camp, near Shanghai, in order to cut off the city and forcibly maintain, if necessary, her refusal to reopen the Yangtse River to commerce.

Naval engineers are carrying out the work with the aid of an army of Chinese prisoners and forced labourers, 30,000 of whom are excavating and filling in the swamp near Kiangwan for the airport with bricks and stones from the ruins of Chapei and Hongkew. Sales of confiscated Chinese land are financing the entire undertaking.

The following cablegram was received by the Chinese Consulate-Gen-eral from Chungking yesterday:—“Owing to our -counter-attacks, the enemy in Viangai, Hupeh and Hunan provinces are still on the defensive. “In the east of Kwantung, fighting continues in the neighbourhood of Tsungfah, Fahyuen and Samshui. Fighting in these areas has developed into what one may call see-saw fighting, the position changing hands frequently. The enemy suffered heavy losses.

..“With regard to the Canton-Kow» loon railway, the enemy, in making use of his superiority in gunfire, forced us to withdraw from the railway line, but our troops are still on each side of the line, putting up a stubborn resistance, and causing heavy losses to the enemy. We have recaptured Shumchun on the Hong Kong border.’ ’ MANDATED ISLANDS. NO QUESTION OF SURRENDER. TOKIO, December 4. , Admiral Ryozo Nakamura, a retired member of the Supreme War Council, after touring the mandated islands, said that the Japanese residents outnumbered the total of natives by 10,000. Moreover, the Japanese language was supplanting the native, which will soon vanish. Thus any question as to who was owner was settling itself. Admiral Nakamura said that Japan had not the slightest intention of giving up the islands to Germany or anyone else. NORTH CHINA COMMAND. TAKEN OVER BY FORMER WAR MINISTER. (Received This Day, 10.0 a.m.) TOKIO, December 5. A former Minister of War, General G. Sugiyama, has replaced' General Terauchi in the supreme command in North China.