; TROUBLE IN AMOY,

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 183, 2 August 1923, Page 5

; TROUBLE IN AMOY,

"FOREIGN DEVILS" IN DANGER GTTTTBOAT3 SHEIi HEBIDETCES. ARMED PROTECTION SOUGHT. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyrifht.) (Beceived 10.80 a.m.) NEW YORK, August 1. British and Japanese Consuls at Amoy have requested the authorities at Hongkong to dispatch gunboats to protect residents belonging to the nations represented in this treaty port. There recently appeared in Amoy Harbour gunboats belonging to the Peking Government. These fired shells which fell in the residential portion. While attempting to land three Americans were fired at.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.) Apparently much of China, with its incredibly vast population, is in chaos. It was recently reported that hardly anywhere was there a semblance of order of government, except in Treaty ports, and that "the foreign devil" in these ports was in danger from bands of brigands and those who were in opposition 'to organised society. Amoy is a seaport ]on a small island of the same name, in the province of Fukien, 325 miles from Canton. The third in importance of the Treaty ports, it was one of the earliest seats of European commerce in China. The Portuguese had establishments at Amoy in the sixteenth and the Dutch) in the seventeenth centuries. It was taken by the British in 1841 and, by the Treaty of Nankin, a British Consul and British subjects were permitted to reside there. It has both imported and exported large quantities of opium, a traffic to which the present United States Government is much averse. The island; itself, which is 9 by 7 miles, has 400,00 ft inhabitants, while the port has 95,000.