WAR IN CHINA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 May 1941, Page 2

WAR IN CHINA

PART OF GENERAL AGGRESSION SCHEME LINK IN AUSTRALASIA’S DEFENCE. ROTARY CLUB ADDRESS. “China is fighting our war —a war which has spread throughout Europe as part of a general scheme of aggression. China is the first line of Australasia’s defence,” said the Rev. J. R. Higgs,; 8.A., F.R.G.S., late of St. Andrew’s Church, Kowloon, China, in an address to the Masterton Rotary Club yesterday afternoon. Mr Higgs was a chaplain in China for seven years. He stated that the Rotary Club in Hong Kong was a substantial and fine body. “It is true to say that the more you know of China, the less you know,” said Mr Higgs. Why did war break out? Wars never came by force of arms alone. Jealousy, greed and territorial ambition were root causes. Japan counted China’s resources, and Mr Higgs outlined the trend of events leading up to the flare-up in 1937, and to the present day. Japan’s policy was Asia for the Asiatics, with the object of excluding Europeans. China, he said, was making rapid progress under the leadership of General Chiang Kai-Shek. Almost a miracle had been performed in the last ten years. With a further five years of peace, Japan would not have dared to commence hostilities. He likened the Italo-Abyssinian war to the war in China. What did the war mean to China? he asked. He had visited Shanghai in 1938, and had been amazed by the scenes of desolation. The Japanese had placed guns at the end of tenement houses and had blown out the centres of thousands of houses. Mr Higgs emphasised the havoc created by Japanese bombing in the thickly-popu-lated areas. The Japanese burnt crops and planted opium in North China, and retailed the product to demoralise the people. Hundreds of thousands of the flower of China’s manhood had been killed and thousands of women beaten and raped. j

‘ I am often asked this question: 'Can China win?’ I say yes, if armaments can be got to China,” said Mr Higgs. He advanced the following reasons for his opinion: (1) The brilliant leadership of General Chiang Kai-Shek and his talented wife; (2) the tremendous potential man-power of China’s 400,000.000 people; (3) their capacity, as a people, for suffering and sacrifice; (4) unity produced by the war, as never known in the nation's history; (5) China's geographical size; (6) the knowledge that her’s was a just cause and that Britain and America were behind her; (7) the morale of the people. “China's trials may be her salvation," said Mr Higgs in conclusion.