IN TIENTSIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 152, 28 June 1940, Page 3

IN TIENTSIN.

JAPANESE TACTICS.

HUMILIATION OF ENGLISH.

SET POLICY CONTINUED,

(By MARC T. GREEXE.)

TIENTSIN, April 20.

The British community here, besieged for more than a year behind electricallycharged barbed wire that immediately destroys any living thing touching it, is approaching a state of actual desperation. The longer their privations endure the greater seems to grow the contumely with which they are treated by even the humblest of the Japanese soldierv. Jeered at, spat after and annoyed in every diabolic Asiatic fashion, they are beginning to wonder whether they really still have a country or not.

\ou have to observe the position at first hand in order to understand that. It is a position without precedent or parallel. The blockade of the British Concession, sustained for more than a year now, has no vestige of legality from any viewpoint. It is simply an arbitrary act by the Japanese and appears to have as its three main objects, the humiliation of the English for the purpose of demonstrating to the Chinese—and to the rest of the world—that the supposed might and prestige of a great Western Power can be scorned at at will by the founders of the "New Order in East Asia," to reduce the British community of several hundred to such a state of discouragement as will make them amenable to the return of the Tientsin Concession to the Chinese (in this case the same as turning it over to the Japanese themselves), and the continuance of the wholly illegal and impudently-collected revenue demanded of the English for the privilege of passing in and out of their own national property, or having their food necessities brought into it. Systematic Annoyances. The Japanese make all manner of trouble about these. The other day they made the Chinese coolies dump to the ground a larg<; cartload of potatoes from the country. Every single bag had to be emptied and examined, the excuse being that "weapons might be concealed in them." All supplies are held up at the barriers for a long time, and if there is any way the sentries can think of to damage them it is invariably done. That, however, is the mildest of the annoyances to which the Tientsin English community is subjected. Everybody who passes in and out of the gates through the electrically-charged wire must have a pass in addition to !his British passport. This document itself seems to have a singularly irritating effect on the Japanese soldiery, though not one of them could have told the difference between a British passport and a Peruvian a few years ago. It is quite clear, however, that they have been enlightened about these things by their officers and informed fhat while they must treat the bearer of a German or Italian or American, or even an Irish Free State, passport with respect the other thing is the proper procedure with the possessor of a British. But the pase is necessary also. Each is examined as closely by the sentry at the gates as if he had never seen it before, though he may have done two or three times that very day. He seems to regard it as suspect in any case. After the careful inspection the bearer may have to wait anywhere from an hour to three hours before he is let through the barrier. If it is raining, or even snowing in the cold northern winter, that does not ma-tter. The usual procedure is to send the Britisher, man or woman alike, to the end of a long queue of Chinese coolies and comor her to the humiliation of following them into the enclosure. Moreover, if anyone happens to be outside the fence after midnight, perhaps visiting friends in other sections of the city, he doesn't get in at all. He is told that it is "too late." Last week two prominent Englishmen of the community appeared at the barrier a few minutes after midnigiht. They were compelled to spend all the rest of the cold, raw, drizzly night walking about the roads outside the gate, while the Japanese sentries, drinking their tea over their little fires, had a great time laughing about it. Diplomatic Negotiation. Perhaps in the entire history of the British Empire there is no precedent for this sort of thing. It has reached the point at which more than one Englishman here is declaring openly that he thinks he will become an American citizen, "if he ever gets out of this mess alive." For no one can say what the Japanese will do next. It is clear that they have no respect whatever for British people or for British prestige, that they have been given reason to feel perfectly confident that there w ill be no retaliation whatever the insults and abuse heaped on the P eo P ,e of the ' English Concession, and that the tune is coming when they are going to drive them out anyway. The main source of worry for the British here, then, is, what may attend the process of being driven out.

This matter of the Tientsin blockade has been argued at length and for many months by Britain's Ambassador in Tokyo, Sir Robert Craigie, and the Japanese Foreign Office, which has promised always to "give the matter serious consideration." "Giving a matter serious consideration" is one of the favourite Japanese tea-time diversions. This particular matter has probably been the subject of many a little joke at the Japanese Foreign Office. "The English will do nothing but talk" is a phrase so common in Japan to-day that you perceive at once what "appeasement" has meant among a people who interpret such a policy as nothing but abject weakness.

In any case, it seems impossible to achieve anything in respect of the pitiable plight of the British people here. The lack of sufficient food combined with worry and apprehension has already had a serious effect upon many people, especially women and children. The coming summer, with its heat and disease and dirt, is looked forward to with deep concern. Many ]>eople will fro home to England. l>ui more cannot because their property and means of livelihood are here. Under prevailing conditions it is impossible to sell anything other, perhaps, than to the Japanese at a terrible loss. No doubt the Japanese hope to acquire a good deal of British property in this fashion, and probably they will. One of the worst of the humiliations suffered by the English here, especially as it lowered English prestige still more throughout the entire East, increased anti-British feeling among the Chinese and had unpleasant repercussions in America, was the turning over to the Japanese for torture and execution of the four young Chinese who, accused by the Japanese of "sedition" (sedition, that is, against the puppet Government), had taken refuge and achieved safety, as they supposed, within British lines. No proof whatever existed that these men had committed any crime. It was, in effect, a test case. The Japanese Foreign Office "represented" to the British Embassy in Tokyo that "something might be done" regarding the Concession blockade if the British gave up the prisoners. Possibly the Foreign Office may have been sincere, but their wishes would not have been heeded by the military control of Tientsin. That control completely dominates the position here as elsewhere in Japanese occupied China, and the English are apparently the objects of its most scornful contumely.