The importance of Mahweiling can-rot be minimised since the possession of this strategic point will enable zn army holding it either to march southward along the Kiukiang-Nanchang Railway to Nanchang or advance westward along the highway, via Wuning and fHsiushui, on the Canton-Hankow Railway south of Hankow, Observers on the Juichang front declare that the Japanese, following the" failure of two determined attempts to carry the high hills strongly defended by crack Chinese divi-ions, have definitely "abandoned eir attempt to break through the nese line west of Kiukiang for a march westward along the south bank of the Yangtze. A Japanese advance in this sector, it is stated, must now await the outcome of the Mahweiling battle.
An urgent telephone message received here this afternoon by the Chinese military headquarters said that Mahweiling was still in Chinese hands and that fighting was going on at Mingshan, seven miles south-east of Juichang.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.