GRAVE SITUATION

Hokitika Guardian, 26 March 1927, Page 3

GRAVE SITUATION

SERIOUS CONFLICT FEARED. POWERS RUSHINC TROOPS TO STORM CENTRE. [Australian & N. Z. Cable Association.] (Received tins nay at y.ou a.in.; SHANGHAI, March 25. The situation i-. hourly becoming graver. Everything is pointing to tlie foreigners being faced with a titanic struggle to prevent total annihii'ation. The Cantonese forces are gathering rapidly outside the settlements. The authorities expect an attempt at capture.

The United Slates <if America is using cruisers from Honolulu and Portugal from Macao. Britain is sending reinforcements from Hong Kong. Japan is pouring in thousands of troops, and Japanese destroyers are heading for Nanking and Shanghai in large numbers. me Royal Marines have Occupied the industrial centres, principally in the British centre in anticipation of the Cantonese surrounding the Settlement gates. AIV barricades have been closed. The traffic is supervised and searched, and the guards have been trebled and international patrols have been arranged.

THE PRESIDENT ALERT. WASHINGTON, March 25

Admiral Williams cabled the threatened bombardment of Nanking lias been postponed because the Chinese arc delivering all the foreigners safely out of the city. This is a White House announcement.

It is declared America U roused over tho China situation. President Coolidge is taking personal charge of the direction and negotiations, and the instructions to Admiral \\ illiams.

THE LATEST REPORT. SHANGHAI. March 25. Thirty Japanese naval men landed at Nanking in an endeavour to secure loty.-h with rlv Japanese Consulate. The situation at Shanghai is still causing the foreign authorities much anxiety.

The cordon of defence is being strengthened hv sand bags and breastworks at vulnerable points. The Southerners attempted to clean up diaper. They were only moderate! v successful.

Hand to hand struggles between tho Cantonese regulars and armed civilians continue. The .Cantonese themselves have been iriiilty of looting.

One party of Cantonese broke into a Roman -Catholic Church, where they decapitated the statues, and then hurled them into a creek. The strikers are slowly dribbling back. The customs employees resumed yesterday. THE UP-RIVER REFUGEES. SHANGHAI. March 25. All the foreign women and children and the majority of the men have evacuated Nanking with great difficulty. When the Northern troops left Nanking without fighting, the foreigners were rescued by the naval parties and were placed on hoard the destroyers, and transhipped in midstream to river boats, thence proceeding to Shanghai. The refugee problem at Shanghai is serious. Women and children are now sleeping in the vestibules and kitchens. The new arrivals are overcrowding that which is nlrendv full.

NORTHERN ARMY. SHANGHAI. March 25. • There is now a tremendous battle reported to be raging between the Cantonese and the Northerners at Hsinkuan, close to Pukow. ATTACKS ON FOREIGNERS. deceived this day at S a.m.! SHANGHAI. March 25. It is reported that a hundred British and twenty Americans are missing and two thousand Chinese were killed at Nanking. A naval wireless from Hankow says all American women and children are being evacuated. 'Hie anti-foreign agitation is increasing. Chekiang reports all passing steamers are being fusilladed from both sides of the river. British and American women, and children arc concentrated and destroyers are guarding them. At Changhsha a franeas occurred between Chinese and a rating from the warship ‘Woodcock” one rating being wounded. Wuliu reports that the whole town is plastered with virulent anti-British posters. NAVAL RAID. HONG KONG, .March -25. The British naval expedition against, the notorious Chinese pirates’ Dir at Bias Bay tell a thrilling story of their adventure. The expedition was commanded by Rear-Admiral Boyle. It, comprised the cruisers Frobisher miii Delhi, the minesweeper Mnrazion, am: the sloop Foxglove, and the aircraft carrier Hermes. It left Hong Kong on Tuesday evening, and arrived off Bias Bay early the following morning Three hundred men of the naval force and police embarked in boats, which the Marazion towed ten miles to the head of the inlet, where the men wncled ashore waist-high through muddy water. They found two villages, the pirates’ haunts, deserted. The inhabitants were hiding in trees. The villages were collected, and were given time ill which to collect their belongings, after which all their houses, sheds, junks and sampans were destroyed. Meanwhile aeroplanes from the Hermes flew- over the scene. '1 he neighbouring hillocks were crowded with Chinese, watching the operations. The smoke of the burning structures was visible for miles ‘around, thus constituting a salutary lesson to the whole countryside. There were no casualties. .Instructions not to injure buildings of a religious character woio carefullv observed. Copies of explanatory notices, stating the object of the punitive expedition, md giving a warning against recurring acts of piracy were distributed throughout the villages.