Chinese victories in Southern Shantung, widely publicized By Hankow sources, were characterized by a Japanese military spokesman in Shanghai yesterday as "the descrip-Yөn of what would have happened had the Chinese plans succeeded. However, the Chinese plan did not succeed," he remarked, Basing his assertions on dispatches from the front giving information up. to Thursday midnight, the date on which the Chinese claimed having scored a major victory, the spokesman declared that the towns of Taierchwang, Yihsien, Taochwang and Lincheng were in Japanese hands.
Engagements between Japanese troops, seeking to break up concentrations of Chinese forces pre-raring for an offensive, and their adversaries took place near the towns of Taierchwang, Yihsien, Tsaochwang and Lincheng on the Tsinpu spur line and near Lanling, further east, on Wednesday and Thursday, the spokesman said.
"These combats, however, were on a small scale", he remarked. "In dispatches they were characterized as major skirmishes'" These combats, he added, were invariably precipitated by the Japanese, who took the offend sive against Chinese concentrations before the latter had consolidated their positions.
When questioned whether or not the Japanese had been checkmated their attack upon Hsuchow, the spokesman said: "It takes a long time to kill off 200,000 men." This number, he said, was the aggregate of Chinese (crees now concentrated near the Lunghai and Tsinpu junction.
"One cannot judge the success or failure of an offensive operation in terms of time alone," the spokesman continued replying to a barrage of questions. "One has to take into consideration the size of the contending forces as. well as the willingness of the commander of the attacking force to make sacrifices and other factors in order to determine the success or failure of such an operation", Paris, Apr. 9.
French polities were again in the melting pot when the second Popular Front Government of M. Leon Blum, which came into office less than a month ago, resigned last night after the Senate, as expected, rejected the Finance Bill.
Under the measure the Premier had expected to raise a large additional sum for his armaments programme. The Senate refused even to discuss it, and rejected it outright by 223 votes to 49. The House had never been so crowded within living memory for the crucial debate.
M. Blum made a desperate effort to win over the hostile Senators. He spoke for two hours, during which he was frequently interrupted by irenic applause. He bitterly assailed the House, declaring that cirewrstances were no longer the same as in 1926 or 1934. The working classes had become conscious of their "You have no right to decide, Premier thundered. "That belongs to the Assembly chosen by universal suffrage."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.