A SHOWDOWN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 119, 22 May 1928, Page 7

A SHOWDOWN.

CHANG AND JAPAN

Effort To Withdraw Into

Manchuria.

PERPLEXING SITUATION,

(United. Service.)

(Received 1 p.m.)

TOKYO, May 21

To-day's dispatches indicate that General Chang Tso-lin is now negotiating with Japan in an effort to arrange an orderly retreat into Manchuria without making a showdown battle against the Nationalists as he previously announced he intended.

To Japan the question threatens to assume a showdown with regard to hexwhole and oft-reiterated' declaration of the "special interest of Manchuria and Mongolia," as it believes the submission of Chang Tso-lin's desires could not but weaken the Japanese position eventually.

This, it is considered, might be only temporising with what the whoie Empire considers to be a question vital to the national welfare.

It is stated that Japan intends to abide by the spirit of the Washington declaration with regard to China, but that any action necessary to preserve Manchurian peace should not be interpreted as violating this spirit.

The general tenseness of the situation is indicated by the fact that the wives of the Japanese Minister to Peking and of the Legation Counsellor left Peking to-day for Tokyo, while the total Japanese evacuation since the Tsi-Nan-Fu incident has reached i>oo.

CHAOTIC CHINA. Northerners Claim Moderate Successes. CAN HOLD POSITIONS. (United Service.) (Rccoived 10 a.m.) SHANGHAI, May 21. The Northerners are claiming moderate successes on the Peking-Hankow and Tientsin-Pukow railway. They aver their ability to hold their positions against the Southerners who, however, are slowly progressing along a middle line. This will possibly result in turning the Tsang-chow position. ARMS FROM BRITAIN. INSURANCE DECLINED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 12 noon.) RUGBY, May 21. Asked whether any steps had been taken at the instance of the Foreign Office to prevent the insurance in Britain of shipments of arms to China, Sir Austen Chamberlain, Foreign Secretary, said that without special legislation it would not be possible for the British Government to prevent British firms from undertaking such business, but at the request of the Foreign Office the marine underwriters at Lloyds, together with the Institute of London Underwriters and the Liverpool Underwriters' Association, had voluntarily agreed not to underwrite consignments of arms or ammunition to China.

Ho was glad to lake the opportunity of expressing liis appreciation of the public spirit shown by them in this, as also on so many other occasions. AMERICANS KILLED. WARNING NOTE SENT. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) WASHINGTON, May 21. The United States Minister at Peking, Mi". J. V. A. MacMnrray, has handed identic notes to the. Nationalist and Northern Governments laying stress upon the serious

concern w i th which America views the killing of two American missionaries in the recent fighting in the Shantung province. The Note asks both sides to take every possible measure to prevent the killing of Americans by unseasoned soldiers. The Note to the

Nanking Government urges the Nationalists to s<*nd only their best troops against Peking lest otherwise there should be looting and killing of foreigners. The State Department, however, makes it quite plain that the United States has no desire to interfere in the Chinese civil war.