TURBULENT CHINA

Hokitika Guardian, 11 April 1929, Page 7

TURBULENT CHINA

TROUBLE HUE TO COMMUNISM FRENCH LAWYER’S VIEWS.

AUCKLAND, April 9

Eie<h stories of turbulence, which has been seething in Oil in a for nearly twenty years, are told by Monsieur W. Tondon, a French lawyer, who has been practising in Peking for the last eighteen years, and who was a passenger by the Marama, which arrived from Sydney this morning.

Although the city in which M. Tondon lived was not the scene of much serious trouble, news of the warfare in other thickly populated areas came often. Countless exciting narratives wen* heard, said AT. Tondon, of hairbreadth escapes from pirates, rebels, and army deserters. There were other stories, too —stories of whole families who had not escaped, hut who had perished at the hands of their relentless enemies. Many of the tales concerned Europeans, but most of the victims in any of the outrages which occurred so frequently were of course natives. Communism, according to AT. Tondon. has been the cause of nearly all the trouble. The Bolshevists came into the country promising the gullible Chinese better wages and conditions. Trade unions were formed, but most of the money that the natives earned went to those organisations. It was only natural, ho said, that having been told such wicked lies certain sections of the Chinese should have risen -in revolt. Throughout the land the people ll’ve been terrorised.

More than one case could he mentioned where a mere handful of white* ordered to leave the cities in which they had been working, have taken refuge in the British Settlements, such as Shanghai, and have lived for weeks within an enclosure encircled by barbed wire, with the shrieking of maddened crowds, the cracking of snipers’ rides and the distant booming of heavier guns making them wonder if they would ever again know peace and freedom.