London, Aug, 26.
The wider political aspects of the war, says "The Times" in a leader to~ day' on the Sino-Japanese conflict, are, to some extent, dominated by a paradox.
In order to conquer, Japan must destroy; yet if she destroys too much, her conquest is fruitless. Her aim, dictated by her own interests, is the subjugation, rather than the overthrow, of the Nanking Government:
The collapse of the central authority in China would double the invader's difficulties and halve the victor's rewards. However, "The Times" asserts, the existence of a central authority depends on its armed forces, and to defeat these without disintegrating. China and cutting Japan's own economic life line will require a precision of aim and a delicacy of timing which "the hotheads of the army are not best fitted to provide.'
Referring to the campaign in North China, "The Times" says that it foreshadows the control by Japan of the Peiping-Paotou Railway whose seizure by Japan would be, for strategic reasons, a matter of immediate concern to Moscow.
Among the many dangers which beset Japan on the warpath the great est, the journal continues, is the threat of intervention by Soviet Russia. This threat, if it develops at all, is not likely to do so until an is even more deeply and more dispersedly committed in China than she is at present—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.