TURBULENT CHINA.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 83, 9 April 1929, Page 7

TURBULENT CHINA.

COMMUNISTS TO BLAME.

THRILXINGr TALES OF REVOLTS

FRENCH LAWYER OX HOLIDAY

Fresh stories of the turbulence which has been seething in China for nearly twenty years are told by Monsieur W. Tondon, a French lawyer who has been practising in Poking for the past 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 warfare in other thickly populated areas came often.

Count Irs- I ■ ifjr narratives were hoard. said M. Tondon. of hairbreadth escapes from pirates, rebels and army deserters. There were other 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 Europeans, ■ but most of the victims in any of the outrages which occurred so frequently were, of course, natives.

Promises Never Kept,

Communism, according to M. Tondon, has lieen the cause of nearly all tlm trouble. 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, he said, that having been told such wicked lies, certain sections of the Chinese should have risen in revolt. Throughout the land people have been terrorised. More than one case could be mentioned where a mere handful of whites, ordered to leave the cities in which they had been working, have taken refuge in British settlements such as Shanghai, and luive lived for weeks within an enclosure encircled by barbed v ire. with the shrieking of maddened crowds, the cracking of snipers' rifle* and the distant booming of heavier siuns making them wonder if they would ever again know peace and freedom.

"Not To Be Trusted."

Speaking of the Chinese themselves, M. Tondon said that although the world hart ouce known them as 111 honest people, now they neither trusted, nor were they to be trusted. After a short stay in New Zealanl. during which he intends to visit Rotorua, M. Tondon will sail from Wellington by the Makura for Tahiti. Later he will go on to France. He has el | -,1 his offices in Peking, owing to the removal of the seat of Government to Ranking. In a year or two perhaps he will go back to the East t:> relieve his partner, whom lie has left in charge of another branch, but for time vet he intends to take a good holidav atter twenty-two strenuous vears in a much-troubled country.