CHINESE TROOPS REVOLT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1378, 2 March 1912, Page 5

CHINESE TROOPS REVOLT.

RISING IN PEKING, UNPAID SOLDIERS LOOT THE CITY, POPULACE FIRED ON. By Teleerapn—Press Association—Copyrluht (Rec. March 1, 9.10 p.m.) Peking, March 1. Owing to tho non-payment of their wages, five thousand soldiers of tho Third Division of the Regular Army burnt their quarters near tho headquarters of Yuan-Shih-Kai, President of tho Republic.

Armed with Tides and bayonets the soldiers scattered, looting shops, particularly those of goldsmiths and pawnbrokers. Thoy constantly fired their rifles to intimidate the populace and bayoneted resisting ehopkeopers. A pawn-shop near the residence of "The Times" „ correspondent (Dr. Morrison) was fired, ond the conflagration soon assumed large proportions. A strange spectacle was then witnessed. Gangs of mutineers were seen dancing around the fire shooting madly into tho flames, and then rushing .into tho shops and staggering off laden with loot wrapped in blankets and curtains. The foreign troops in the meanwhile had rescued the foreigners and taken them to tho Legation quarters. At mid-dny seven great fires were burning. Tho shooting was then dwindling owing to the expenditure of ammunition and tho exhaustion of the looters, parties of whom wero leaving the city with ponies laden with loot. Peking, February 29. Hundreds of the troops of General Yuan-Shih-Kai, President of the Republic, hove rioted. There has been indiscriminate! shooting and •» wrecking of houses. Thousand's of soldiers are restoring order.Advices from Wuchang state that tranquillity has been Testorcd there. The griovanco was due to favouritism in the making of appointments to the army.

NEW OPENINGS FOB TRADE. Sydney, March 1. At a monster Chinese picnic held yesterday to celebrate the inauguration of the.Chinese Republic, some of the speakers dealt with the great possibility of trade development, between Australia and the new China. Tho president of the Young China League declared that the one ambition of the united parties was peace and tfevotion to the arts. They saw the advantage of peaco. China's awakening meant the adoption of Western ideas, particularly regarding food and clothing, which would greatly interest producers of wool and wheat, enormous quantities of which commodities would be required.

Apropos of the above revolt it is interesting to note that tho modern army of China dates from 1895, and owes its beginnings to an experimental force of 5000 men organised by Yuan-Shih-kai, and trained by Western methods, which was stationed at Nsiao Chan (a camp one day's march southwest of Tientsin), immediately after the conclusion of the disastrous war with Japan. • Yuan-Shih-kai may claim to 'ho tho creator of China's modern- army. He showed what Chinese' Itr&ipl'cotM become with proper training. Instead of tho ill-fed, ill-clad, opium-smoking • braves of the old type, Yuan formed an efficient, well-trained force, recruited from a good class of men from the rural .districts of North China, and guaranteed by the local authorities. Under his care, soldiering tended to become an honourable instead of a despised calling. .