FAR EAST CRISIS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11834, 16 January 1933, Page 5

FAR EAST CRISIS

LIFE IN MANCHURIA UNCERTAINTY AND HUNGER. STAMPING OUT BANDITRY It was stated in. September that the Japanese military fixed; a. date lor the cutting' of the kaoliang, or millet, the chief food crop of Manchuria, with the threat, tliat if it wa s not harvested it would" be burned. The reason for this wag that whatever "a Japanese—or an stranger for that matter— appears, he is liable to be sniped at from the kaoliang, which grows 7ft. high and forms wonderful cover. It is reported that ns the fields are cleared the bandits are cleared as swell, says tlio correspondent of tho “Manchester Guardian” in Japan. >Oii September 28 .there iwas an alarming report from Monchuli that tho Mnrichukuo Guards supposed ro he protecting tho railway had mutinied and tliat it- was supposed that the Japanese there had been massacred. The Japanese authorities quickly contradicted this, declaring that the mutiny was merely a strike for arrears in pay, and that th 0 . Japanese wore safe. Nevertheless, though nearly a fortnight had gono by, there was still no definite news except that the Chinese had captured a Japanese aeroplane that was sent to reconnoitre, though the report was confirmed that tho mutiny arose from the fact that the now Manchukuo Government had failed to pay its soldier's. This wa.4 no uncommon thing in China, but the Old and the. Young Marshals in Mukden. had been better paymasters than any others, -so this withholding of the soldiers’ pay is hardly calculated to make a good impression. RUSSIANS’ DIFFICULT TIME Th e Russian managers of the Chinese Eastern Railway are having a- difficult time. At some places Japanese soldiers are used to stiffen the Manelm kuo railway guards, hut to this the Russians object strongly, asserting that if the Chinese (or Afanchuhuo)) soldiers are not sufficient the Soviet ought to supply the necessary protection. Nevertheless, the Russians have nob resisted actively, but have tried to keep on good terms, with ihe Japanese, the Chinese, the Afanchukuo officials and even the White Russians. Except they have avoided hostilities, their pacific policy lias not been, toij successful, as the line has been paralysed for months on its eastern section and intermittently on its southern and western sections.

There is no safety over the whole oi Manchuria except on the railway, and not too much there. On October " the maanger and assistant manager ol the .Mukden. Frontier Bank were kidnapped within the walled cUy and the assistant manager sent- hack lor the ransom. And these were men who had made the peace with the now order and hoped to make their profit, profit. All along the railway there warlike conditions harhed wire, trenches, fortified posts, and so on.

SOLDIERS JOIN THE BANDITS Muehukno- can get plenty of recruits, Hor their army, hut their hearts are not in tlieU- jobs. Only a few weeks aso some 800 of the ucav troops were sent to exterminate a rather superior force of bandits who were threatening a town in North Manchuria; none came back; they actually preferred the hnrships of the bandit’s life and had joined the band they avcto sent out to exterminate. Another case later; 1000 of the new troops were on their Avay from Ssupingkai to Taonan for the protection of the rajhvay, and they all disappeared on route. The correspondent adds: “In North Manchuria the situation is particularly had because of the floods, which have even now not completely disapeared. There were outbreaks ot cholera, which the Japanese dealt with very efficiently. The trouble is far from finished. It is estimated that at Harbin there arc 14,00 destitute people living in damp and evil-smelling sheds—and the winter is upon them. “All over the north stores of fuel and food Avero washed away, and there are hundreds of thousands who face the winter* a whiter Avith the thermometer 40 degrees heloAv zero— with ffear. The men join the. bandits and look for plunder to live upon; and. as with wolves, the cold weather sends them to try their fortune on the outskirts of the towns, hunger making them even more bold and desperate? Trade is absolutely dead, so that distress is almost n 's bad in the towns a.s on. the land.”