"Both Through!"

The Chinese Premier, Dr. H. H. Kung, was found last week to have quietly left Hankow, where his Government continued to organize resistance to the Japanese, and arrived in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. There he was greeted by Mme Kung, her brother, No. 1 Chinese Financier T. V. Soong, and her famed sisters, Chinese Air Force Chief Mme Chiang Kai-shek and Mme Sun Yatsen, widow of the sainted "Father of the Chinese Republic."

Saint Sun's son, Mr. Sun Fo, who recently went from Hankow to Hong Kong and from there to Europe (TIME, Jan. 3), was in Moscow last week and--contrary to the general impression that Mr. Sun has been successfully negotiating Soviet aid for China -- Correspondent Walter Duranty cabled his opinion that J. Stalin & Co. were cold-shouldering China's Sun.

Hankow, "The Chicago of China," to which much of the Government moved before the fall of Nanking, was busy last week with the work of sending more & more Government paraphernalia on upriver to Chungking, where figurehead Chinese President Lin Sen established himself directly after he left Nanking. Japanese planes bombed several Yangtze River cities between Nanking and Hankow last week, dropped leaflets in Wuchang across the river from Hankow reading: "Chinese! Your Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek is a beaten wolf. He is at the end of his rope!"

Chinese newspapers said the Generalissimo was in personal command of 400,000 troops defending his "Hindenburg Line" near Suchow (TIME, Feb. 14). In this sector the Japanese advance launched fortnight ago was proceeding cautiously last week, Japanese artillery blasting the way for Japanese troops. The Chinese, although greatly outnumbering the Japanese, appeared decisively inferior in artillery and aviation.

Startling but not uninformed were comments on the war made on arriving at Victoria, B. C. last week by Journalist Jim Marshall, a survivor of the sunken U. S. S. Panay. Japanese with whom Mr. Marshall talked en route told him they are afraid their country will "crack" this spring, because it has so over-extended itself in China. "In my personal opinion Generalissimo and Mrs. Chiang are all washed up as a dominant influence in Central China," said Mr. Marshall, adding with reference to Japanese overextension: "If the Japanese take Hankow, I am afraid that both China and Japan are through!"

This was a good example of how thoroughly observers are becoming rattled by the difficulty of sizing up war events, most of which are either unwitnessed by any correspondent or distorted by censorship. Apart from China proper, large Japanese forces were striking through Inner Mongolia last week, apparently preparing to try to cut the route of Soviet supplies for China. U. S. merchant ships were unload- ing at Hong Kong quantities of munitions and aviation gasoline for the Chinese. Meanwhile, Japanese were preparing to cut off the British Crown Colony from China by a drive on Chinese soil expected soon. In Hankow the factor represented by the Chinese Communists grew as for the first time a Vice-Ministry of the Chinese Cabinet was given last week to one of their number, General Chou Enlai. Red Chou and his chief, non-Communist Minister of Mass Training General Chen Cheng, will proceed to arm and equip the Chinese masses for prolonged struggle with Japan. Whether the armed masses will achieve a social revolution in China while offering guerilla resistance to Japan loomed this week as a question second only in importance to who wins the war.

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