After nearly three months, the Japanese armies on the Tientsin-Pukow Railway front are still over 100 miles apart, separated not only by distance buf by large, active Chinese forces, declares the "Manchester Guardian" to-day.
Failure, indeed, is the predominant. note of this Japanese offensive, the newspaper proceeds.
For the first time since the war began, the journal says, the Japanese are fighting desperately with the knowledge that the whole campaign may depend on this struggle, Every available Japanese soldier has been hurried to the main front, and yet still there is no sign of a break in the Chinese lines.
For the first time, the "Guardian" asserts, the Chinese are more than holding their own. There is no doubt, it adds, that this slow progress has sobered the Japanese nation.
Signs have been cautiously revealed by the Japanese press of moves io limit the conflict, the journal statees, but it is questionable whether this is now possible. Japan has been Gragged on by her military leaders from a "local incident" to a major war of a nation against a nation, in which no compromise is possible. Iris 2 ght to the finish and the finish is far distant and still obscure.
is stan: il (Continued on page 6)
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