Hongkong, Jan. 29.
The Chinese Ambassador, Mr. Hsu Shih-ying, returning to China from Japan, granted a Trans-Ocean representative in Hongkong a special interview in. which he very obligingly. answered questions regarding the Japanese policy and the situation in Japan itself.
Asked about the feeling of the Japanese people and the situation in Japan, he declared that the Japanese nation was aware that the war was directed against the whole Chinese people. The Japanese people, therefore, realized the gravity of the situation and one might reasonably doubt, said the Ambassador, that the war was popular in Japan.
Mr. Hsu Shih-ying doubted that the economic preparations being made by Japan for the conduct of a long war were adequate, The foreign trade of Japan had been to a large extent destroyed and the gold reserves and holdings of foreign exchange exhausted. These reserves could moreover not be renewed because the magnitude of the requisite expenditure of the war had not been foreseen by Japan. Both industry and transport in Japan suffered from a shortage of technical workers, these having been called to the colours.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.