If it is remembered that China is aiming at the exhaustion of Japan, it will be realized that allis not lost even if Hankow falls, since Changsha is the limit beyond which Japan will hardly dare to push her armies. By the casual tourist in China it is rarely realized how much of that vast country is mountainous and inaccesible. Only 29 per cent. ôf China is capable of cultivation, and this percentage includes the vast granary of Manchoukuo, as well as the rice fields which, in the valleys, are stepped up mountain sides which would be the despair of aby tank commander.
It is patent that Japan's military occupation of much of level China still leaves 80 per cent. of the total area in Chinese hands.
The portion £o far brought under Japanese occupation i inged with mountains, from whence guerrilla bands can as already they have done in the north. Here, -both before and since the floods guerrilla excursions have harassed the garrisons.
Japan will have to guard and patrol every yard of China that is important to her, Every mile she penetra! will add to the commitments she must make to keep the conquered countryside safe for the trade that is vital to her. Her occupation of Manchuria has given her a foretaste of what her preparations must be. She will require an enormous garrison to protect her puppet governments, whose writ will run only so far as a rifle can carry beyond the post that fires it, Japan may win the war in China and still have the risk of losing the peace.
It is pertinent to ask how China can hold out with the bulk of her ports and railways in Japanese hands. As long as the railway from Hongkong is open to her she can import as much material as she can secure from abroad. Her balances of silver in foreign hands can still last a few months, while she is obtaining supplies on credit from Europe Should this vital railway be lost to her there are roads from Burma and French Indo-China over which limited supplies would arrive. But Chinese roads are not built for heavy traffic even if mechanical transport was available in sufficient quantity. Supplies from the Russian-Turkish railway have been arriving over the 2,000-mile road from Central Asia, but to organize this difficult and desert route for traffic to supply 000,000 men is a colossal task beyond the powers of China.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.