Sir Archibald Mediates?

Chinese Premier & Finance Minister Dr. H. H. Kung, instead of dashing to his office at Hankow in a limousine with motorcycle escort, last week was whisked to work in a rickshaw escorted by guards on bicycles. Other Chinese bigwigs were warned to follow the Premier's example of thrift. The Government even discouraged the buying of silk and drinking of tea "as these products should be conserved for export." In a fervent, patriotic convention at Hankow, Chinese political leaders of all factions again pledged unanimous loyalty to Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. This game but losing commander prepared for the probable retreat of the Chinese Government from Hankow, the great central "Chicago of China" to which they withdrew after the fall of Nanking.

Japanese forces, advancing by land and water up the Yangtze River toward Hankow, were delayed last week besieging the Chinese Lion Hill Forts 145 miles down stream near Kiukiang. Daring Chinese fliers in swift, efficient Soviet-built planes bombed and battered Japanese river gun boats, claimed to have sunk 25 and badly damaged 19. None denied that numbers of disabled Japanese craft were being towed down the Yangtze for repairs at Shanghai, Chinese spokesmen even admitted boldly that planes which hitherto have been driving Japanese bombers away from Hankow and the other Wuhan cities last week, left this defensive work to seize the offensive.

Japanese bombers, finding the Wuhan cities substantially unprotected, came over, squadron after squadron during the week, flying at from 10,000 to 15,000 feet, above the range of Chinese anti-aircraft batteries. More than 100 bombs dotted the Hankow airfield with yawning craters. Wuchang was systematically bombed by Japanese craft flying in parallel lines, with nearly 500 deaths in a single day.

In the south, completely undefended Canton reeked with gore and horror as the Japanese, day after day, bombed the vast metropolis from which not so much as a rusty Chinese musket cracked against them last week. Nauseated newshawks tied handkerchiefs soaked in deodorants across their faces as they prowled about Canton streets strewn with decomposing Chinese corpses. The few available surgeons operated night and day in improvised hospitals. But Chinese morale did not crack. Between every raid, sweating Cantonese hustled through into the interior of China by rail and truck the precious munitions landed from British Hong Kong 78 miles down the Pearl River.

Canton knew that the Chinese Generalissimo must be planning to evacuate Hankow, for last week they saw his munitions trucks no longer heading for Hankow but for strategic centres further West. Bitter was Chinese resentment as dispatches from London announced that last week China asked and Britain refused to grant a $100,000,000 loan to be used in buying more munitions. In diplomatic quarters at Shanghai it was said that Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland were now jointly attempting mediation between China and Japan. The British Ambassador to China, Sir Archibald John Kerr Clark Kerr, was reported acting as the spokesman for this group of would-be mediators at Hankow, pressing the Chinese Government not to depart into the remote interior without taking some part in an effort to negotiate peace. Energetic Britons, meanwhile, staked out a large portion of Hankow which they will try to get the Japanese to recognize as a neutral zone for refugees and foreigners, enlisted numbers of local British soldiers to act as its defenders.

About the last Chinese city to which the Government can withdraw is Yunnan, only about 300 miles from Tibet. There last week, Chicago Daily Newsman A. T. Steele optimistically reported that Chinese fugitives are arriving by the tens of thousands -- including student and staff members of three Chinese universities -- and that those who come to Yunnan "will find themselves in one of the most picturesque and climatically desirable regions of China."

The picturesque Chinese natives, according to Mr. Steele, are profoundly amazed by the type of modern, westernized Chinese now arriving in numbers in their sleepy, remote fastness. The latest group of Chinese students, he declared, were presented with a scroll reading: "We welcome you . . . because you are scholars and leaders of the masses. But we hope you will bring us broad knowledge and high learning, not face powder, rouge, high-heeled shoes and fashionable foreign dress."

Workmen are now rushing numerous small factories to completion in Yunnan. The remote boom town is beginning to hum and, flashed Mr. Steele: "Yunnan has yet to experience its first bombing."

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