CHINA

Evening Star, Issue 19520, 30 March 1927, Page 6

CHINA

THE NANKING OUTRAGES

A PREARRANGED PUN

BCOMEBAHC FOR CANTONESE

FOREIGN COMMUNITIES CONSOLIDATED

Press Association—By Telegraph—Oopjiigbt

LONDON, March 29. (Received March 30, at 12.20 p.m.) . Reports received at Dorking Street clearly prove that the Nanking outrages were the work of uniformed members of the Cantonese army acting on a prearranged plan, though the Cantonese commanders later quickly checked the disorder by warning the looters that they would be executed. This command was not given until the commencement of the Anglo-American naval barrage. Official circles emphatically deny the reports that the naval firing caused widespread damage and killed hundreds of Chinese men, women, and children. They point out that the firing was most carefully directed on the open spaces around the city. The damage and casualties therefrom were quite small, but the barrage was imperative for the purpose of keeping off the Cantonese assaults till the foreigners were rescued. Official circles take a hopeful view of the situation, based on the reasons that the Cantonese extremists are on the horns of a dilemma, as they realise that the Nanking outrages have consolidated as nothing else could all the foreign communities, who will ultimately negotiate in reference to the Shanghai Settlement, and that the Cantonese will therefore be unable, in this instance, to play off the Americans and Japanese against the British. Complete international co-operation, such as Britain has sought from the beginning, has not been totally attained, but Nanking has produced solidarity against the Cantonese. On the contrary, the Cantonese extremists, if they behave decently, will enable the moderates to obtain an advantageous agreement similar to Hankow. They recognise that the moderates within a few months will become the dominant party, and quickly shed the extremists and their Russian advisers. In the meantime local Consuls have advised the evacuation of all Britishers from the whole of the Nangtse Valley, including Changsha, Chungking, and Tchang.