Evening star., 1938-10-22
The Fall of Canton.

lhe Fall OF Canton.
That South China's metropolis has
fallen to the Japanese in fewer than ten
days since the invaders landed an ex-
peditionary force in Bias Bay, northeast
of Hong Kong, comes as military sur
prise of the first magnitude. There was
every indication that the KWantung
army of Chang Kai-shek was equipped,
In both morale, munitions and defensive
possibilities, to offer the enemy battles
before surrendering the populous center,
which, from outset of the undeclared war,
was the funnel through which China's
fighting sinews have mainly poured,
originating in Hong Kong and to lesser
degree in Indo- China.
Undoubtedly, the loss of Canton Is one
of the severest blows the Chinese have
yet suffered. 1t is even more serious in
some respects than the earlier losses of
Peiping, Shanghai, Tientsin, Soochow
and other pivotal points. The virtually
unresisted advance of the invaders into
the once teeming community, which is
the cradle of the Nationalist movement
and will forever be associated with Sun
Vat Sen and the republican dynasty he
founded, strongly suggests that Japanese
"silver bullets" As well as vastly SUI
perior mechanical force and aircraft,
played heavy role in Canton's capture.
The immediate effect of the great city's
fall may not be disastrous for China.
Chang is believed to possess, in the in
terror in and around Hankow, $50 miles
from Canton, a minimum of four months
military supplies. But with the Hong
Kong Canton source, from which the
supplies were almost exclusively derived,
now irrevocably cut of, Japan's latest
victory may In the long run prove to be
Of decisive character. That makes all
the more suspicious the relatively minor
cost at which it was bought by force
Of 10000 to $4,000 men who faced de-
Tending army of many times that num-
Der, supposedly well supplied in both
materiel and will to fight on. Through
out the long and sordid story Of Japan's
penetration" of China, "silver bullets"
have more than once played role, to
China's undoing.
To what extent Japan's mastery Of
Canton may incite her to make firm de-
mands on Great Britain and France now
becomes question of great moment. A
Canton in Nippon's hands almost dooms
the traditional paramountcy of British
trade in South China. 1t is bound, too,
to whet Toxic extremist ambitions to
expel the British from Hong Kong and
the French from Indo- o-China-eventuali
ties periodically foreshadowed as strong
probabilities, once the banner Of the
Rising Sun foated triumphant and ire
sistible in that part of China where the
forces of the Mikado have just achieved
one Of their farthest-reaching, though
most effortless, successes.
The United States, too, in degree sec
ond only to Britain, has cause to view
with alarm the newest stranglehold
Japan now obtains on China. Our
Chinese trade ranks next to the British,
and American interests are correspond
ingly affected. Toxic processes periodi-
cally that the open door will be main
tanned in Japan-dominated "China
proper" But the experiences of the
Western powers in Manchukuo have not
been such as to justify confidence in
japanese professions about equality of
commercial opportunity in the vast
Chinese market once Nippon's influence
there is paramount. Canton's fall, there
is all too much reason to fear, is also
the Vests fall, as far as its economic
hopes and rights in China are concerned
That is an eventuality the full magni-
tude of which will become progressively
apparent as the significance of Japan's
latest conquest dawns upon the occident