CHINESE CHAOS.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17105, 29 March 1921, Page 7

CHINESE CHAOS.

RUMOURS DENIED. A PROSCRIBED LEADER. *, Oable-Pjesa .WocrV.icn-Copyright.) (Reutor'e 'lcleg.ama.) (Received March 25th, 10.53 p.m.) V ' PEKING. March 28. The Government states that there is bo foundation for tho rumours rcgiwdJlg an impending Monarchical movc"Sto rumours were started by tho recent arrival at Peking from Turkestan Jthe proscribed Boxer leader, Prince Tho Chinese Government did no sanction his return from, ex.le again., which tho Diplomatic Corps made a determined protest compellmg the Govornment to send Prince Tuan, who u>> rXcpit man, back to Turkestan. The situation in China seems to be Btcadily going from bad to worse, wrote i the Tientsin correspondent ot t •<- •Morning Post" in January. In th? <:, North there is a terrible famine, with 7 which the Peking Government ha» shown itself quito incapable of coping. In Mid-China there have been mutimcr. '■ and threatened mutinies of troops, K whoso pav is many months in arrears. Sun YaUcn and his party have- taken advantage of ,tho overthrow of the Kwangsi faction in Kwangtung to oegin the organisation of another "Constitutional" Government nt Canton. From Manchuria come almost incredible stories of acts committed by the Japanese forces which crossed the Korean border into Chientao, ostensibly for the purpose of rounding up a band of armed robbers which had attacked and destroyed tho Japoneso Consulate at Hunchun. Tho Central Government is gtill at its wits' end to secure the funds with which to carry on tho administration and meet the blackmailing demands of the militarists. And tho Minfcter of Financo has been foolish enough to affront the representatives of the Consortium in tho Capital by circulating a letter suggesting that they had been demanding conditions incompatible with the sovereignty of China tor » new lonn.' , It is estimated that unless very substantial financial assistanco is obtained from abroad within the nest few weeks between ten and fifteen millions of tn; nopulation of the Northern Provinces wifi perish from starvation and disease during the winter. The only distributing agencies in which any confidence is felt are those in which the funds collected aro handled by a foreign trea- \ surer, <rad the actual distribution ■of relief » undertaken under the supervision of Protestant and Roman Catho--1 lio raissionariea. But these, the only \'l 'dependable relief committees, encoun- \\ ter obstruction and delay from the 1 Chinese officials at every turn. • / The Central Government recently apf pointer* a Civil Governor to the Province of Hnpeh who was persona non grata to the Tuchun or Military Governor. The latter and his subordinates iive exhausted overy means in their power to drive the new holder out of office. Ho has been alternately threat- • ened and cajoled,, troops took possession . of his official residence, and only the ' unexpected firmness of the Premier averted his resignation. The Tuchun then tried another method of getting his own wav. He announced that his troops had long been unpaid and were on the verge of mutiny, and demanded Immense sums from Peking to pacify ... them. Peking could not or Would not find tho money. A serious mutiny at Ichang followed. Tho city • was systematically looted, and much property including the premises of several foreign firms; was destroyed. Peking thou I grudgingly produced funds io pacify the , troops nt this centre, who had already ;; , garnered in a rich harvest of loot. A $' Jew days later a mutiny was threatened <"at Hankow and' Wuchang, iind tlhe'local aLjnerchants, to avoid a repetition of the 'Wchang outrage, raised a sum of half ,jsk million dollars to pay the troops. •f After the raid upon the Japanese '' Consulate at Hunchun, on the Man-churia-Korea border, by, a band of Hunghutze.a couple of months ago, a Japanese Expeditionary Force crossod tho frontier, an defiance of Chinese protests, with tho avowed intention of rounding up and suppressing the bandits. But sinco the troops entered Chinese it has become clea 1 * that their real object 'was the terrortaation of the Korean farming population in Chientao, who are accused of revolutionary aotivilios. Pitiful reports havo ' come from %m Canadian Presbyteriin Missionaries working in the neighbouri hood of the savagery of tlhe invaders. - Scores of churches and schools have been . burnt down, hundreds of peaceful Koreans, most of whom woro Christians, have been shot off-hand without oven the pretence of a trial. The revelations of the missionaries led to the dis'patch of a special Japanese Military Mission, not for tne purpose of investigation .83 was at first supposed, but with the object of intimidating the missionaries. In a letter wOiicli has been printed in nearly every newspaper •in the Far East, Colonel Mizumnchi. tho head of this Mission, who'claimed , that he was speaking on' behalf of tho bluntly told the -missions' arieß that tlhe future of their work # would depend lipon their co-operation f with the Japanese authorities. They I must train the Koreans in their schools and churches to be loyal subjects of S' Japan, or their wprk will not be />< tolerated. . fr ' ' ' ( S ■ _