BANDIT MILLIONS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 81, 30 December 1931, Page 9

BANDIT MILLIONS

China Infested With Roving Bands NO WORK THE CAUSE The hordes of bandits and robbers infesting China, numbering some 2 000 000 in all, must be extirpated before there will be auy hope of prosperity returning to China. This opinion was expressed by MrOscar Janson, correspondent of the “Svenska Journalen” newspapers in Sweden, when he arrived, in Wellington yesterday after more than a year’s travelling in various countries, including China and Manchuria. Mr. Janson agreed with Mr. H. F. von Haast, who returned from the conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations on Monday, that probably China’s greatest hope lay in the appearance of a strong dictator, supported by a well-disciplined army, who could establish some sort of stable government. „ , Danger After Dark.

If otic went out of places like Tientsin, and even Shanghai, after dark, one stood in grave danger of being attacked and robbed, Mr. Janson said. Bandits appeared to be everywhere, more or less in isolated groups near the towns, but in great numbers-in the hills. The trouble really lay in the fact that approximately 200 millions of China’s population of 460 millions were unemployed, and many of the people had difficulty in obtaining enough to eat. Bandits in the country were officially estimated to number about 2,000,000, but probably the number was a great deal more. Bandits’ Military Training.

What made the work of checking their activities so difficult was the fact that bv far the greater number of bandits had had military training in one or other of the armies in China—they were deserters who had left the War Lord they had followed, simply because the pay of 2/- a month was useless, even when they got it. In northern and central China there were several districts which had been plundered time and again, and the farming communities had. given up ail attempts at cultivating the land, because no sooner did anything appear that was worth robbing than the bandits descended from the hills, spent a few days plundering farms, villages and towns, and then went back again to the hills.

Whole Towns Occupied. In many cases whole towns had been occupied for days at a time, the population subjected to all sorts of indignities,- and property plundered and ruined. Guards on TrainsIn Manchuria now there were no trains running that did not carry with them strong guards of soldiers. Even then, train robberies were frequent. So far as Mr. Janson could learn the bandits were not Communists. They ■took the measures they did only because they were hungry, like many other of the Chinese people. However, .their activities were becoming more widespread every day.