A REIGN OF TERROR

Hokitika Guardian, 16 April 1929, Page 2

A REIGN OF TERROR

CHINESE GULLED BY COMMUNISTS. AUCKLAND, Aprl 9. Fresh stories of tho turbulence which has been seething in China for nearly 20 years are told by M. AA r . Tondon, a French lawyer, who lias been practising in Peking for the past 18 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 scone oT much serious trouble news of warfare in other thickly-populated areas came often. Countless exciting narratives were heard, said M. Tondon, of hair breath escapes from pirates, rebels and army deserters. There Were either stories too—-stories of whole families who had not escaped, but who had perished at the hands of their relentless enemies Many of the tales concerned European but most of the victims in any of the outrages which occurred so frequently were of course natives. Communism, according to M. Tondon, has been the cause of nearly all the trouble. The Bolshevisms came into the country promising the gullible Chinese better wages and conditions. Trade unions were formed hut most of the money that the natives earned went to those organisations. It was ony natural, he said that having boon told such wicked lies certain sections of the Chinese should have risen in revolt. Throughout the land people had been terrorised. More than one. case could he mentioned in which a mere handful of whites, who had been ordered to leave the cities in which they had been working, had taken refuge in the British settlements, such as at Shanghai, and Had lived for weeks within an enclosure encircled hv barbed wire, with the shrieking of maddened crowds, the cracking of snipers’ rifles, and tho distant booming of heavier guns, making them wonder if they would ever again know peace and freedom.