New York, Apr. 5.
Considerable comment was devoted in the press here this morning to the importance of an eventual complete Jepanese occupation of Hunan province and to the consequences that such an occupation would bring for China.
"Events in the near future may determine not only what power the Chinese have to divert the Japanese drive, but what the prospects of penetrating and controlling the western provinces are," the "New York Herald-Tribune" stated. "Every Japanese movement in China is now planned with an eye toward the revenue which would compensate the home Government for some of the cost of the army's maintenance. The conquest of Hunan is, therefore, as important for the Japanese as it would be discouraging for China. It is now claimed in Japan that this adventure in China is no longer a race against bankruptcy because the day is in sight when the commercial exploitation of the conquest will pay the cost indefinitely.
"Anyone who knows the Chinese capacity for withstanding passively the conqueror's lash must have some evidence that the conquest can be stopped and put into reverse somewhere. So there will be millions of anxious Chinese eyes fixed on this high-powered Japanese drive in Hunan, watching to see what General Chiang in the West and the guerillas everywhere else can combine to do about it after a long winter's preparation. It is worth watching because, though the upshot of the Hunan drive may not be decisive, it is certainly going to be important."—Havas.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.