DEATH WARRANT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 190, 14 August 1939, Page 7

DEATH WARRANT.

CHINESE PROTEST.

Vigorous Representations Made

To Britain.

FATE OF FOUR PRISONERS

United Press Association.—Copyright.

(Received 2 p.m.)

LONDON, August 13

Chinese official circles are most disturbed at Britain's decision to hand over the four Chinese, says a message from Chungking. The decision is regarded as tantamount to a death warrant. Vigorous representations are being made to the British Government.

The "News Chronicle," in a leader, states that Parliament, if it had been sitting would have said hard words about the cowardly decision to hand over the four Chinese at Tientsin to Japan, which has entirely failed to improve relations between Britain and Japan. If the Chinese are handed over their lives will be thrown away, the paper states.

The "Daily Telegraph" editorially says it does not foresee an early, satisfactory outcome of the Tientsin negotiations, but advocates their continuance in the hope that Japan will restore order in the occupied areas.

The Chinese Ambassador in London, Mr. Quo Tai-chi, lias handed a Note to the Foreign Office urging reconsideration of the handing-over of the men. It is stated that the deifiand for delivery of the prisoners was not made by a competent authority of the Chinese Government as necessitated by the Treaty of Tientsin, but by the Japanese Government and its puppets.

The surrender of the suspects is said to be legally unjustified and also inconsistent with the traditions of British justice, because all chanee.s of a fair trial have been removed. The action might also be interpreted as a de facto recognition of an illegal regime, involving lar-reaching consequences.

A message from Shanghai says that Mr. Grant Jones, assistant judge of His Majesty's Supreme Court in China, reserved his decision on an application by Miss Margery Fry, an English social worker, for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the four Chinese. Mr. Jones questioned whether habeas corpus applied outside the British Realm and the Dominions, and also whether the applicants had authority to apply on behalf of the prisoners.