CHINESE TROUBLE.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 April 1927, Page 2

CHINESE TROUBLE.

TbY TELECHA.PH PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] OFFICIAL NEWS. LONDON, April 25. Outstanding points of a mass oi official information received by the foreign Office, are that Chinese troops who occupied Nanking warehouses have stopped looting and Chiang Kai Slick s compliance with the consular request that troops should not enter the Bi itish concession and Chinkiang. Otherwise official circles admit it is now a case of waiting for development, wlucli are generally taking a more favourable turn pending the Powers presentation of the reply to Chen's note. JAPAN’S FEAR. TOKIO, April 25. The special service ship M.uroto is hastening preparations to sail foi Shanghai on Friday with twelve hundied marines. Japanese Consuls in ! .Manchuria report little danger from actual Russian moves north of Manchuria but there is a grave danger the I Russians will supply arms to bandits, I encouraging these to terrorise, loot 1 and kill. This is the reason Japanese 1 are being evacuated from tho outlying regions. Bandit hands many in eases are able to gather two to five thousand cut throats .sufficient to-capture small cities. CLAIM ON CHINA. SHANGHAI. April 25. American reports dealing with the sanctions which are contemplated to accompany the Powers second note regarding Nanking outrages indicate they include a declaration over a neutral zone between twenty-five and fifty miles in width from the mouth of the Yangtze to Ii hang. a thousand miles up the river including all cities on both hanks, also a declaration of neutrality from Canton. Tsingtao anil Peking, thus wiping out sources of revenue.

The war lords neutralisation of the Yangt.se takes in Shanghai, the entire Shanghai-Nanking railway, and creates a clear passage for the whole trading on the Yangtse, with communication with Shanghai. A complete agreement lias not yet been reached between the Powers. Japan is reported to he insisting on the inclusion of Shangtung and portion of Manchuria in the neutral zone.

The presentation of the new note is imminent. It is expected to be delivered to Eugene then only. Indictions as to the text include a time limit for compliance with the terms which are severe.

Political observers declare that the enforcement of the sanctions would cause pacification on the I augtse and here would he a trade boom upon the resumption of foreign internal trade.

Forty-three foreign man-of-wars are anchored oil the shore at Hankow and others are leaving Shanghai in preparation for the enforcement ol the demands whatever their ultimate nature. Meanwhile, apparently the deliberate efforts of both the Northern and Southern forces to drive foreign shipping from the Yangtse are proving more disastrous to Chinese than to foreigners. The only effect on the latter is giving the sailors gunnery practice. British naval authorities preserve the strictest secrecy regarding the results of an engagement between British warships and Chinese soldiers ashore. An American pilot who reached Shanghai gives the first reliable estimate of the damage caused by ioroign warships, principally American and British, in the past month’s Yangtse warfare. Warships of no other nation were reported active during the period, British and American undertaking the whole convoying of merchant ships whether carrying French, Spanish, • Japanese or Italian rclugees. Ihe pilot declares there were thirty-five separate engagements between foreign ; warships and Chinese forces, eight British and live Amcrcan cruisers and destroyers and gunboats participating. Four Chinese forts have been rendered virtually useless; fifty field guns disabled and numberless machine guns wrecked. It is roughly estimated three thousand Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded and hundreds of houses destroyed, mostly occupied by troops. On the twenty-third the British gunboat Mantis convoying two refugee ships was fired upon by Cantonese soldiers. The .Mantis replied with six inch shells amongst a hunch of 150 soldiers and when the smoke cleared thirty were counted alive. The destroyers Wolsely and Keppell were also fired on near Nanking from mud forts and replied demolishing the forts. Similar incidents occurred almost daily, despite severe reprisals. It is considered only a general clearing out which is contemplated, will prove effective. CHINESE HAPPENINGS. SHANGHAI, April 25. Visitors to Nanking report the city is in a state of greatest confusion. A few hundred Russians with ten thousand northern soldiers were surrounded at Pukow but refused to surrender and continue to drop shells from an armoured train in Nanking streets. Chiang Kai-Shek seems likely to prove strong enough to wreck the Communists. but ton weak to enable the Nationalists to get along without them.Hankow’s fate either from a northern advance or internal insurrection is only a matter of weeks. Hankow coolies already are pillaging British godowns and auctioning goods. The police are powerless to intervene. Sir Percival Phillips writes from Shanghai—The relentless confiscation of private fortunes has begun, in tho shape of a capital levy of thirty per cent on all bank deposits. The latest methods of the Communist Government of Hankow to extract money from Chinese merchants are the familiar Russian methods of intimidation, including the execution of tlio.se proving reluctant and are already in full operation at Changsha. Nanobung and elsewhere in the interior. No executions have taken place yet at Hankow, hut Labour pickets arrested prominent Chinese on charges of possession of wealth illegally acquired, and they will he tried by special tribunals. U.S.A. WARSHIP CASUALTIES SHANGHAI. April 26 There were several casualties aboard the United States warship Penguin, as a result of firing from rifles, machine guns and field pieces from the southern shore batteries about seventy miles up the river. The attack apparently was deliberate and malicious, and from the standpoint of casualties the worst so far sustained by a United States vessel in Chinee waters. AMERICA S REFUSAL. WASHINGTON, April 25. Mr Kellng (United ' States Secretary). has authorised the .statement that the United States does not accept the form for a reply to Mr Chen that wag submitted by Air Mac Murray (U.S.A. Minister at l’ekin) after his conference with the diplomatic council at Peking, which form presumedly is designed to enforce demands previously submitted to the Nationalist Government. The entire question of the reply is still under the consideration of the U.S.A. Government, which does not consider it wise, in view of the chaoticcondition of China, to take any hasty steps. iMr Kellogg said he does not 1 know exactly the attitude of each of the Powers, and he is not sure that any country has accepted the proposals of

the Diplomatic Council in its original form. He added that lie knew some countries had not accepted it, but lie declined to name them. He concluded by saying that no instructions have been sent to Air AlacAlurray to'refrain from further conferences with the other foreign diplomats at Poking.