MANCHURIA: Rout oj Ma

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General Honjo Digs In. With the capture of Tsitsihar (which Japanese estimated cost 300 Japanese lives, 3,000 Chinese) the Japanese forces in Manchuria under General Shigeru Honjo controlled all three Manchurian provincial capitals, Mukden (General Honjo's base) Kirin and nese had already dug in by establishing puppet Chinese governments at Mukden and Kirin. Last week they established Chinese Puppet Chang Chin-hui at Tsitsihar. To demonstrate the independence of these Chinese regimes General Honjo called attention to the fact that the Chinese Government of Southern Manchuria at Mukden had just adopted a budget of their own diligent devising. When correspondents asked the puppet Chinese for a copy of this budget they were told, "Come back tomorrow and you can have it. It has not yet been translated out of Japanese."

Seemingly all effective Chinese resistance to Japan in Manchuria had been crushed last week. Only at Chinchow, far to the south of Manchuria and near China proper, was there any large group of Chinese soldiers who might do battle. To hearten them Chinese President Chiang Kaishek at Nanking-1,000 miles south announced in the flamboyant vein of General Ma that he would personally rush north "to direct the offensive and avenge China's honor." But President Chiang did not stir out of Nanking last week.

In Nanking an ambitious man got what he wanted. He was Dr. Vikyuin Wellington Koo. onetime Premier, onetime Minister to Great Britain and to the U. S. What he wanted: the coveted job of Foreign Minister. While Dr. Koo and others were eyeing the post longingly two months ago a band of "students" obligingly made it vacant by a savage assault upon the then Foreign Minister Dr. C. T. Wang who, severely injured, "resigned" (TiME, Oct. 5). One of the aspirants was Dr. Alfred Sze, delegate to the League of Nations. Many observers in Shanghai last week predicted that Dr. Koo's tenure would survive only until Dr. Sze's return from Geneva. The Canton faction stubbornly regarded Dr. Koo as only minister protem, hopeful of a chance to get its own Eugene Chen or Dr. C. C. Wu into the office permanently.