STRAIGHT TALK

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 80, 5 April 1927, Page 9

STRAIGHT TALK

SATISFACTION MUST BE GIVEN

. (British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, 3rd April,

Referring to the events at Nanking in a speech at Darlington last night, Mr. Neville Chamberlain (Minister of Health), said:

"After the intolerable outrages that have been inflicted on us the very least we cau do is to demand that the guilty shall be punished, that an apology shall be made, and that such reparation as is possible shall bo offered for the injuries that have been done. We desire to put our demands forward in complete harmony and co-operation with other nations whose nationals have suffered. I trust that the Cantonese Government, who claim to ranK among the civilised peoples of the world, will do what any civilised nation would do, and will take steps to find out who is guilty, and that they will satisfy the demands

which we shall put forward to them. But there must be no evasion or denial of these responsibility which, by evidence not only of the British, but of other nationals, have already been proved to rest on the shoulders of the Cantonese army, and it must be clearly understood that neither in China nor anywhere else can British subjects be murdered, robbed, and insulted with impunity.'' NATIONALISTS TO BLAME. Further information ascertained from unimpeachable sources bears out that the killing and outrages which took place in Nanking were the work of uniformed Hunanese Nationalist soldiers. Practically every foreign house in the city was completely pillaged, including three Consulates, and eight for-eign-owned houses were burnt to the ground. Looting continued for several days after the outrages of 24th March. It was the gunfire from the British •cruiser Emerald and the American destroyers which enabled any foreigners to escape with their lives. Shells fired by the warships were dropped over the Green Agricultural Ground, near Standard Oil Hill, and provided a protective barrage for a party of foreigners who were escaping, and who were under the rifle fire of Chinese soldiery all the time. Reliable Chinese sources confirm that only three Chinese civilian casualties were caused by the shelling. Only a few foreign-owned houses are in the area where the shells were dropped, and the damage to Chinese property was infinitesimal. No Chinese house caught fire.