'With regard to the reconstruction of damaged Canton, the traveller was astonished to find that the Japanese are doing almost nothing in' that re~ spect and confined their efforts at reconstruction merely to dumping truck-loads of stones into holes in the roads where heavy military traffic "Tt would certainly be Japanese to hire all the though they were not interested at al, confining their activities merely to putting up pillbox structures at practically' all intersections of the city, presumably in afitieipation of street-Sighting, although in. their construction, no provisions have been made for the use of hand-grenades by the enemy, most of these protective posts, which are growing in number daily, merely consisting of three-foot high brick walls with slots for rifles only."
Asked whether the foreigners living] on Shameen were expecting any developments in Canton, the travellers, stated that as a general rule, he understood that they anticipated no change for some time and were rather Dessimistic about the possibilities of serious guerilla attacks on the city, although volleys of machine-gun and Title fire could be heard nightly from the outskirts of the city. He also stated that some time ago a pitched battle had taken place in the vicinity of a mission hospital which is situated sufficiently close to Canton-to permit the staff to come to the city for their week-ends. Japanese troops and guerillas faced each other and virtually fought a battle for the hospital which ended in the victory of the Japanese.
There are more troops arriving in Canton dally, the traveller added, after a considerable number had been withdrawn just prior to the occupa tion of Swatow and Foochow and supplies were also steadily coming in.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.