BANDIT MILLIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 11 January 1932, Page 2

BANDIT MILLIONS

CHINA INFESTED WITH ROVING BANDS. NO WORK THE CAUSE. The hordes of bandits and robbers infesting C-hina, numbering some 2,000,000 in all, must be extirpated before there will be any hope of prosperity returning to China. This opinion was expressed by Mi Oscar Janson, correspondent of the “Svenska. Journalen” newspapers in Sweden, when he arrived in \\ ellington the other day, after more than a year’s travelling in various countries, including China and Manchuria. Mr Janson agreed with Air H. F. von Haast, who returned Rom the conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations last week, that probably China’s greatest- hope lay in the appearance of a strong dictator, supported by a well-disciplined army, who could establish some sort of stable government. Danger After Dark. If one went out of places like Tientsin, and even Shanghai, alter dark, one stood in grave danger of being attacked and robbed, Mr Janson said. Bandits appeared to be everywhere, more or less in isolated groups near the towns, but in great numbers in the hills. The trouble really lay in the fact that approximately 200 millions of China’s of 460 millions were unemployed, and many of the people had difficulty in obtaining enough to east. Bandits in the country were officially estimated to number about 2,000,000, but probably the number was a great deal more. Bandits’ Military Training. What made the work of checking their activities SO difficult was the fact that hy far the greater number of bandits had had military training in one or other of the armies in China—they weip deserters who had left the War Lord they had followed, simply because the pay of 2/- a month was useless, even when they got it, In northern and central China there were several districts which had been plundered time and again, and the forming communities had given up all attempts at cultivating the land, because no sooner did anything appear that was worth robbing than the bandits descended from the hills, spent a few days plundering farms, villages and towns, and then went hack again to the bills, Whole Towns Occupied. Tn many cases whole towns had been occupied for days at a time, the population subjected to all ,sorts of indignities, and property plundered and ruined,' Guards on Trains. In Manchuria now there were no trains running that did not carry with them strong guards of soldiers. Even then, train robberies were frequent. So far as Air Janson could learn the bandits were not Communists. They took the measures they did only because they were hungry, like many ether of the Chinese people. However, their activities were becoming more widespread every day.