"Home By New Year's"?

Tap, tap, tap League of Nations typists wrote about Manchuria last week in Paris.

They gossiped, chattered, primped their hair. The portable League Secretariat, pitched like a gypsy camp in the spacious salons of the French Foreign Office, settled down as though for a long winter in cubicles formed of red burlap screens six feet high. Every afternoon there were two kinds of tea -- tea with vintage port for League Councilmen, and tea with port. Efforts to cajole Japanese troops out of Manchuria had practically ceased.

Instead Council Chairman Aristide Briand, after consulting U. S. Observer General Dawes, strongly urged Chinese Delegate Dr. Alfred Sze to advise his Government that the only thing left to do was for Chinese troops to evacuate Chinchow and retire south of the Great Wall, thus withdrawing entirely from Manchuria, abandoning it to Japan.

"Never!" retorted Dr. Sze. "China will defend Chinchow to the Death!'' Not quite sure of himself, however. Dr. Sze cabled his resignation to Nanking, was requested to withdraw it, settled down at the League tea party.

In Nanking much the same quaint course was followed by Chinese Foreign Minister Dr. Wellington Koo who, last fortnight, broached to Japan a proposal for evacuation of Chinchow and establishment of a "neutral zone'' between China proper and Manchuria (TIME, Dec. 7). Last week Chinese students, who have already beaten up one Chinese Foreign Minister for his "weak policy" this year, massed in Nanking and menaced Dr. Koo.

Promptly he took the line that China would not evacuate Chinchow, then resigned.

Chinese President Chiang Kaishek, who announced three weeks ago that he would go north and tight Japan (TIME. Nov. 30), held prayer meetings in Nanking last week, did his best to calm the students, persuaded Dr. Koo to withdraw his resignation.

In Tokyo the Imperial Japanese Army once again asserted itself, perhaps to the discomfort of the Japanese Civil Cabinet which advocates in public a policy of peace and nonaggression. Fortnight ago Foreign Minister Baron Shidehara could point to Japan's "peaceful" withdrawal of a Japanese offensive already launched against Chinchow (TIME. Dec. 7). But last week War Minister General Jiro Minanmi impressed on even the Foreign Office his "realistic" viewpoint. Announced the Foreign Office press spokesman: "As the withdrawal of the Japanese Army toward Mukden, after the operations in the direction of Chinchow. was due to the assurance that the Chinese were prepared voluntarily to withdraw their troops within the Great Wall, Nan king's reported rejection of the proposed neutral zone may, it is feared, have a most unfortunate effect on Japanese mili tary authorities, who regard it as an act of bad faith on China's part."

Next day both Foreign Office and War Ministry said that a second Japanese offensive against Chinchow was being pre pared, would be launched if Chinese did not evacuate. In Mukden. Field Commander General Honjo joked: "I want to get our Japanese boys home by New Year's, but that depends on the Chinese!" Three days later the joking General heard that soldiers" 1,000 had "Chinese gathered 20 bandits or miles north of disbanded Mukden, dispersed them by an air raid, in which Japanese bombs slew 300 Chinese.

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