CRUEL INDIGNITY TO NEW ZEALAND AGENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 147, 24 June 1939, Page 9

CRUEL INDIGNITY TO NEW ZEALAND AGENT.

TIENTSIN ASSAULT.

Forced To Strip Before

Passing Women.

SHOCKING .TAP. OUTRAGES

United Press Association. —Copyright

(Received 1J noon.)

LONDON", June 23

-Mr. Cecil Davis, lion, agent for the New Zealand Government, who was subjected to indignities at Tientsin yesterday on entering the concession, to-flay was stripped despite his protestation that he. was the agent of the New Zealand Government.

"The Times" Shanghai correspondent says Mr. Davis, who escaped undressing yesterday, entered the same examination shed to-day with the intention of leaving the concession. He was told to take off his shoes and complied, but he refused to undress.

A gendarme then hit him three times on the month with his own passport, Mr. Davis saying each time, "Thanks." He then elected to return to the concession, but gendarmes forced him to strip naked and kept him in this degraded position while nt least a dozen foreign women passed.

Mr. E. G. Jamieson, British ConsulGeneral, has received no replies to any of his many protests. The Japanese are now insisting that British authorities deport Mr. E. F. Smith as an undesirable before agreeing to hand him over. Nobody, with the exception of a doctor, has been allowed to see liiin. Caught on Electrified Wire. The body of a Chinese dressed like a coolie was observed hanging on the electrified wires near the United States barracks. Apparently he had been electrocuted when leaving the French concession overnight.

Hundreds of docile Chinese are queueing at nearby searching posts, where some Germans for the first time were ordered to wait with the Chinese.

Meat was available in the British market this morning, but there was none in the municipal market or in private stores.

British troops arc tightening their precautions in view of the threatened anti-British demonstration in the Chinese city. It is feared the mob might be incited to inarch 011 the concession.

Special guards have been placed at the markets to protect Chinese stallholders, whom the Japanese have threatened with reprisals unless they cease serving foreigners.

Rising prices arc worrying the authorities. The poorer quarters are suffering particularly. Relief measures are being devised.

Faced with a barrage of questions about Tientsin, the spokesman added: "We want British co-operation. The views already expressed remain those of the Japanese authorities, who are awaiting further developments. All are treated alike at the barricades, but each according to his merits. The British are typically arrogant."