GOOD PROGRESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1942, Page 3

GOOD PROGRESS

NEW ROAD FROM INDIA TO CHINA ACROSS ASSAM MOUNTAINS. BREATH-TAKING PROJECT. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 4. The prospects of supplying Free China through India are commented on by the weekly “The Economist” in reference to the new road which leads from Chittagong over the Assam Mountains, in close proximity to the southern frontier of Tibet, to Chungking. “One of the main functions df General Chiang Kai-shek’s visit to India was an agreement on the final plans for the completion and use of this stupendous mountain highway,” says “The Economist.” The possibility that the Burma Road might eventually be closed was foreseen by the Generalissimo as long ago as 1939, and work on the new road was started by March, 1940. Construction unfortunately was delayed by the hostility of the Tibetan people, who are hostile to foreigners on religious grounds, and have memories of an earlier Chinese incursion. This hostility, of course, was exploited by the Japanese, but it is believed that Tibetan suspicions have now been allayed. Details of the route and the progress of construction have not been disclosed by the Chinese authorities, but it is estimated that three-fifths of the road is complete. Some 40,000 Chinese coolies are busy on the remaining part and the work is proceeding fast. The project is breathtaking, and is to be taken seriously. The Chinese estimate the interval between the closing of the Burma Road and the opening of the Assam highway to be short enough to guarantee their survival, JAPANESE ISLAND RAIDED BY ALLIED PLANES. SOME DAMAGE ADMITTED. LONDON, March 5. A Tokio communique says that about 30 enemy planes raided Marcus Island at dawn yesterday and did some damage, Marcus is a Japanese island about 1100 miles south-east of Japan and well inside the Japanese Pacific zone.