Government officials said they could London, Jan. 26.
The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lord Gort, who is leaving England on a visit to Egypt and Palestine, broadcast a short address tonight.
Lord Gort said:
"I am looking forward with great interest to my forthcoming visit to Egypt and Palestine because I am anxious on the one hand to study, in consultation with those locally responsible, the various problems of imperial defence in the Middle East and on the other hand to renew personal contact with British soldiers of ell ranks doing work, of which his fellow-countrymen usually hear too Kittle.
"Nowadays especially, it is only natural that problems of home defence should loom large in our thoughts," Lord Gort- continued.
"However, we shauld also remember as well that the British soldier stands sentinel day in and day out in supporting civil authority in the maintenance of law and order in far off Tientsin, Shanghai, and Hongkong, in India and Burma, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, in West Africa and the West Indies.
"Usually, by the-performance of his routine duties, he carries cut two tasks simultaneously which at first sight sound almost irreconcilable—the maintenance of order and the establishment of friendly relations in whatever part of the world he may find himself.
"His secret," Lord Gort concluded, "lies in his unfailing good humour, his tact and sense of fair play, coupled with his uncanny ability to make his meaning understood in any lenguage"—Wireless through Reuter. make no estimate of the appalling property damage resulting from the earthquake because reports from various areas had been too fragmentary. They also pointed out that destruction in the next several days, until the raging fires sweeping through many towns can be brought under control, may be even greater than that suffered thus far.
Government offices worked throughout the night last night preparing relief measures for the afflicted areas as radio contact gradually was re-established with isolated sections of the earthquake zone. The Government appealed to all amateur radio operators throughout the Western Hemisphere to assist in obtaining accurate reports from the earthquake zone so that assistance might be sent where it was needed the most.
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.