CHANGING RAPIDLY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 20 April 1927, Page 9

CHANGING RAPIDLY

LATE EDITION

SITUATION IN CHINA. REPLY TO MR CHEN. NO AGREEMENT YET. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT Received 1.20 p.m. to-day. LONDON, April 19. An Admiralty communique states that Chiang Kiasiiek has announced that he Iras definitely broken with the Chinest' Communists and tne- Hankow Nationalists. and intends to proclaim an independent Government, with his capital at N anking. Ships on the Yangtze River are. being fired on Horn both banks. Executions of wealthy Chinese at Changsha continmies. Large numbers of rich Chinese are having Hankow, where uneasiness is increasing. 'Hie Japanese have landed field guns at Hankow. Exchanges of views regarding the five Powers’ proposed reply to Mr. Chen’s insolent rejoinders to the demands for reparations for the Nanking outrages have taken place, but consultation between London. Paris, Rome Tokio and Washington and their representatives in Peking is a long-drawn-out- process. Meanwhile the situation in China is changing with such rapidity that the Powers are necessarily thrown back on a the poliev of “wait and see.” « Authoritative news received in London confirms the thoroughness with which Chiang Kaishek is rounding up Communists. Of 1500 arrested in Canton, 100 have been executed. Similar ‘.anti-Communist activities are being carried out at Swa-tow. Fuchow, Wuishiah, Hangchow and Ningpo.

FIRED ON. REFUGEES FROM CHINA. A GRAPHIC STORY. SYDNEY, April 17. Twice fired on by Chinese soldiers; forced to shelter behind armour-plat-ing on the ship they were travelling on down to the Yangtse, a missionary and his family who arrived by the Taiping to-day liad an exciting time in China. The missionary, the Rev. Christian Nagel, said he and his family left Szechwan, which is 1200 miles from the coast, at the order of the Consul, and boarded the American steamer Ipin. The first time the steamer was fired on by soldiers “out of devilment,” and on the second occasion Southern soldiers hoped to stop the steamer with a rain of bullets, so that they could join the vessel. Nobody on hoard was injured, passengers taking refuge behind the armour-plating under the bridge. Mr Nagel said that Russia was undoubtedly behind the trouble, the object being to cripple British trade in the East. Twelve month’s furlough lias been granted to Mr Nagel, who is going to New Zealand. Mrs. R. Thompson, who with her baby also arrived by the steamer had been living at Changsha for a year when the trouble reached a head. “I have no desire to see China, again,” she said to-day. Mrs. Thompson’s husband is an official of the Standard Oil Company. She had little news of her home since she left at the time of evacuation, and proceeded down the Yangtse by a congested steamer under the escort of warships.