BRIGANDS MOVE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 72, 25 March 1936, Page 7

BRIGANDS MOVE.

CAPTURE OF CITY. White Missionaries' Peril in North China. NEW ZEALANDERS SAFE. CJnited Press Association. —Copyright. (Received 11 a.m.) PEKING, March 24. The Communists are reported to have taken Hung-tung, where 13 missionaries—British, Australian and American —were reported yesterday to have been in danger. It was then thought that two New Zealanders, Mr. and Mrs. Knight, were in the city. Nothing further has been heard from Ping-yaug, where nine adult missionaries and four children were reported yesterday to have been in danger.

The Central Government replied to tlie British Embassy promising 'every effort to protect the missionaries.

The "Daily Telegraph" Peking correspondent says two expeditions are moving against the Communists. The safety of the Britons depends on whether these expeditions arc successful.

Private information has been received by cable in Auckland that Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Knight, of Auckland, who were reported in yesterday's cables to be in danger from Communistic troops in China, are safe. The message yesterday stated that the China Inland Mission, under whose auspices the Aucklanders were working, had reported that there were at least 13 adults, including Mr. and Mrs. Knight, in Hungtung, which was threatened by the Communists. Yesterday, however, the Rev. H. S. Conway, organising secretary of the mission in Auckland, sent a cable to Shanghai, the reply to which was that Mr. and Mrs. Knight, with their child, had begun their return to the province of Kansu, the province to which it was known that they were going. They could not, therefore, have been in Hungtung at the time.