CHANG HSUEH-LIANG

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 October 1929, Page 2

CHANG HSUEH-LIANG

A TRAGIC FIGURE.

In a three-storey European style house, set in an ancient Chinese garden near the old City of Mukden, lives Chang Hsueh-liang, son of that late and unlamented old bandit Chang Tso-lin, Governoi’ of Manchuria, noAv the focal point in the dispute between the Russians and the Chinese over the Manchurian railroad. In Chang’s reception room are tAvo stuffed Manchurian tigers. One clay last January tAvo of Citang’s generals came to call on him in this room to play mah-jong. They Avere met by an emaciated, sicklylooking man Avhose bony hands shook as he picked up the ivory pieces. He looked like a pdorly preserved man of 40, though he was still under 30. A little later the bodies of the two callers, filled Avith lead, were picked up and taken home to their widows and children. Chang later offered one of the Avidows £lOOO as consolation.

A harassed and worried ruler, taking opium to quiet his raw nerves, tired of governing, but not knowing how to let go, fearing his enemies and suspecting his friends —such is Chang, a hundred times a millionaire, a dictator over the lives of more than 20,000,000 people, and patron, to the extent of £2,000,000 personal gift, of modern education in Manchuria. Ten years ago Chang’s father made him a general. At 25 he was still full of the joy of life—an excellent swimmer, skater, dancer and rider, and a fully qualified airplane pilot. He talked English with a Scotch burr, learned from his childhood playmate, Jimmie Elder, son of the director of the Peking-Mukden Railroad. He learned boxing from Spider Kelly, a late light-weight champion of the United States Marine Corps. A year ago he stepped into his dead father’s shoes. Now he is probably one of the unhappiets men in China.