Meanwhile, the latest reports from the border indicated that Japanese forces were moving up the Canton railway to intercept an alleged new supply route, which the Japanese said had been opened during the absence of Japanese troops from the border area. The entire area was policed by Japanese forces last night.
Japanyse troop movements from Shumchun to Shataokok along the border and the reported concentration ^f Japanese transports at Namtau were interpreted by some quarters here as the beginning of Japanese pressure on Britain to close the Burma Road to shipments of war *aaterials to Chungking.
These quarters believed that the Japanese were deliberately carrying cut the present border operations as a demonstration against Hongkong "hey believed the action formed the initial part of a programme which would eventually lead to stern demands for the closure of the Burma highway, on the grounds that the Burma Road is the only remaining "lifeline" to China in the south-west, now that Indo-China has definitely agreed to close its supply route to Chungking.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.