Monday, Aug. 01, 1938

''Aggressors Must Be Defeated!"

The Foreign Office and all civilian bureaus of the Chinese Government began withdrawing from Hankow last week, under orders from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek that they must be established in Chungking, some 650 miles farther up the Yangtze River. Japan's drive up the Yangtze was still balked at Kiukiang, 135 miles below Hankow, by desperate Chinese resistance amid a scorching heat wave which sent thermometers to 110DEG.

Neutral military observers reported that the Japanese, who were bringing up fresh troops at the rate of 5,000 per day, were chiefly worried by the rapid, unseasonable rise of the Yangtze last week. Its swirling torrents were up 46 feet at Hankow, only six feet below the flood wall. It was possible that floods might soon make most of the Hankow region untenable by either Chinese or Japanese.

At Hankow, attired in a new uniform of pale lavender, Generalissimo Chiang urbanely gave a press interview last week, his chief point being that the U. S., Great Britain, Russia, France and other nations, in their own interests, "should make a joint display of firmness and solidity" against Japan. They should learn as China has learned, declared the Generalissimo, "that compromise cannot maintain peace, that aggressors must be defeated by force!" Washington statistics released last week disclosed that during the past 14 months the U. S. has sold $13,795,000 worth of finished war materials to China, $9,384,000 to Japan.

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