Crumbling Last Line

China's hard-pressed Premier, Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, had more of his usual bad news last week. Japanese money and arms had induced Mongolian Prince Teh to proclaim an "independent" state in Inner Mongolia bordering the Chinese Great Wall. To the north Mongolian soldiers and Japanese planes forced the surrender of the Mongol city of Changpeh in Chahar Province, laid the groundwork for another independent State bordering the "Autonomous Government of North China" hatched last November by the Japanese Army (TIME. Dec. 2). As Japan chipped away at Generalissimo Chiang's China (see map) it became a matter of pressing importance where lay Chiang's absolute line of resistance short of the towering mountain wall of Eastern Tibet.

Long ago Chiang pondered that prob-lem and selected the province of Szechwan. backed right against the Tibetan highlands and 125 miles from British Burma. Szechwan, biggest province in China proper, has a population (76,000,000) bigger than the white population of the British Empire. It is more or less isolated from Eastern China by mountain ranges and the gorges of the Yangtze River. In its centre forehanded General Chiang has quietly been setting up the biggest military and aviation base in China, 850 miles from his capital of Nanking. Szechwan's one liability is that it is surrounded by great geologic faults, is a favorite playground for earthquakes. Last week to Generalissimo Chiang in Nanking went news that last fortnight Earthquake had played through Szechwan in earnest.

Szechwan's earthquake was mighty enough to rearrange the map of Szechwan. In the southern mountains, ancient home of the non-Chinese Lolo, Sifan and Miautse tribes, it opened a mile-long rent in a great mountain. The shaking mountains hurled the little Lolo citadels from their peaks into the valleys, like shot-putters at practice. They threw avalanches into the gorges of the tributary Yangtze rivers. For five hours Chiang's cherished line of last defense undulated and crumbled. It was a week before the first meager tidings trickled down the Yangtze to Nanking.

Not seriously dismayed by several thousand dead Lolos, Generalissimo Chiang concentrated on the probabilities of Japan's policy in China for the new year. Last week he was provided with a sufficiently obvious clue. A potent Japanese advocate of moderation has been wise old Count Nobuaki Makino. As Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal for ten years, trusted adviser and old friend to Emperor Hirohito, he has frequently stood off the more rabid proposals of the militarists. He is a standard name on every Japanese patriot's list marked for assassination, has been bombed twice. Last week Count Makino surrendered to the unceasing pressure brought against him by the Army men, pleaded a bad case of neuritis, resigned as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. The Emperor gave the job to the man Makino suggested: Viscount Admiral Makoto Saito, 77, one-time Premier. This tough but mellow oldster with a portentous pair of jowls can talk as moderately as Makino, but in a pinch he usually knuckles under to the militarists.

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