Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1942. CHINA DEMANDS ACTION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 October 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1942. CHINA DEMANDS ACTION.

PROBABLY no great nation lias ever endured a more terrible martyrdom, or in enduring it has maintained and developed a finer spirit of fortitude, than China in her long resistance to the barbarous aggression of Japan. It may be accounted almost a miracle that the Chinese nation, bereft of much of its richest territory and after years of desolating conflict in which many millions of its people have fallen victim to war, famine and disease, is not only continuing the struggle with unabated courage, but plainly is destined, as a member of the great confraternity of the United Nations, to play a major part in the % defeat of predatory aggression and in the establishment of a better world order. New Zealanders have every reason to respond heartily to the suggestion of the Prime Minister that they should associate themselves today with their Chinese fellow-citizens in honouring China’s national anniversary.

No honest tribute would be paid to China in picturing her as simply an embodiment of strength and resolution, free from all weakness. Iler stand against totalitarian barbarism, in which she has in a definite sense led all other nations is in .fact made more remarkable by the way in which she has triumphed over terrible weaknesses. She has been handicapped almost desperately, not only by a lack of developed material resources which goes far to account for the inroads the Japanese military hordes have been able to make into her territory, but by divisions of internal opinion which have threatened at times to bring her to collapse. These divisions appear in the existence not only of the ignoble Nanking puppet government headed by Wang Ching-wei, but of other minority groups which entertain the idea of some sort of compromise with Japan.

There does not seem to be any doubt, however, that the Chinese as a nation are more and more unitedly supporting their Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek in his heroic determination to carry on the struggle until Japan has been completely and finally overthrown. The one thing needed to make that determination effective is speedy and effective military aid to China by the Allies, ft is by giving that aid —particularly in. the matter of establishing in China air forces great and powerful enough to strike with deadly effect at the Japanese homeland, that the English-speaking and other Allied nations will best demonstrate their admiration of China’s indomitable stand against barbarism and enable her to make that stand effective for her own good and that of humanity at large.