CHINESE CRISIS

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 17 June 1925, Page 5

CHINESE CRISIS

AN ENGLISHMAN AIURDERED.

HIS COMPANION WOUNDED

A GIRL’S PLUCKY EFFORT

EY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT Received June 17, 9.5 a.m. PEKIN, June 16. The growing calm at Shanghai was tragically set hack bv the murder and wounding of two Britishers. 'William* MacKenzie. of the municipal electricity department, took Miss Duncan in a motor-car outside the settlement limits. Seven Chinese, dressed as coolies, stopped the car. • MacKenzie got out and asked what the Chinese wanted. The latter turned on flashlights and fired dying. Miss Duncan, though wounded revolvers, missing MacKenzie, who rushed hack and started the car under, n fusilade. MacKenzie was hit and fell dying. Mrs Duncan, though wounded in hoth arms, drove off. endeavouring to hold on to her dying companion. She had proceeded a thousand yards, when she mistakenly entered a new road which was being constructed and ran .straight into a ditch six feet deep. Miss Duncan screamed, but failed to attract attention. She left +he derelict car and ran to a house and communicated with the police. Miss Duncan’s wounds were not serious: MacKenzie died in a few seconds.—Reuter.

POWERS CO-OPERATING

TO PREVENT’ INTERNATIONAL

COMPLICATIONS.

LONDON, June 15. Replying in the House of Commons to a suggestion that the trouble at Shanghai was one to the low wages and the employment of children, Mr. Arthur M. Samuel, for the Foreign Office, emphasised that the (Jove foment had done all it could to improve the conditions of labour within the international settlement, but it had not control outside. The mob at Shanghai was very large and of murderous intent. Had they succeeded in seizing arms at. the po ice station there undoubtedly would nave been more bloodshed. The British policy in connection with China was adopted in concert with the other Powers interested, and no points of difference had arisen. Tne casualties at Shanghai numbered 21 Chinese killed and 65 wounded. Had the Chinese authorities co-operated with the defence forces, the deplorable loss would have been avoided. The disturbances at Shanghai and Hankow were a symptom of the deep and widespread unrest exploited hv interested parties to stir up feeling against the Powers with the largest interests in China, who therefore were deeply concerned to co-operate with China to secure progress and reform. The surest remedy for the anti-foreign feeling in China would be in an attempt by the treaty Powers to canv out the decisions of the Washington conference in regard to co-operation between the Powers and China in measures beneficial to China. The Government was considering the

best means of overcoming the clifficu'ty prising largely from the absence of effective government in China.. He trusted that the forthcoming conference on the internal traffic in China would afford an opportunity for removing such obstacles and displacing the present atmosphere of distrust, and inaugurating an era of fruitful eooperation between China and the Powers. Replying to Mr. Ramsay MacDonald (Leader of the Labour Party), the Premier (Mr. Stan’ev Baldwin) gave an assurance that the Government was cooperating with the Powers and taking every step possible to prevent the disturbance Incoming a really big international trouble in the Far East. There was every reason to believe that the commissions of inquiry at. Shanghai would co-operate most heartily.