THE BOYCOTT

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3404, 15 December 1931, Page 2

THE BOYCOTT

■ ♦ CHINA'S GRIM WEAPON. Boycotts are China's sharpest weapon and her most ancient one. No one who has not suffered from them can realise their deadliness (writes H. Green in the Daily Telegraph). From time immemorial, when a magistrate "squeezed" his people unduly, they had one invincible retort. They shut their shops and stopped all business, a'nd always the magistrate gave in at once. But the mere passive resistance to the mandarins has developed, when turned against foreigners, into the most ferocious attack, when Chinese who venture to deal in the goods of

the offending nation are beaten, and paraded through the streets, with insulting placards on them, and may even be killed. The terrorism exercised by the boycott leaders knows no bounds. It is only in recent years that boycotts and strikes—the two always go together—have been regularly employed against any foreign nation with which China has a dispute. The first boycott of modern times was against America in 1905. after the passing of the American Asiatic exclusion laws. But the Chinese Government wanted to keep o'n good terms with the United States, and the boycotters were suppressed in a few weeks, though not till they had done much damage. The anti-Japanese boycott of 1919 (due to Japan's retention, under the Versailles Treaty, of Germany's rights in Shantung), which dragged on for nearly two years, doing Japan's trade frightful harm, really set the standard for all subsequent outbreaks. Then for the first time the body of modern students stood out and claimed to lead the nation, as the old classically-trained scholars had done; and ever since, though most of them are mere boys, they have been in the forefront of every agitation. In the past ten years strikes and boycotts have become almost endemic. J

To name only the biggest: The Hong Kong strike and boycott in 1921, directed by Dr. Suh-yat-sen's Government at Canton, when, as ship after ship arrived at Hong Kong, the crews mysteriously vanished, and for many weeks all foreigners had to do their own cooking and cleaning; the terrific anti-British boycott in 1925, due to the shooting of riotous students in Shanghai; the anti-Japanese boycott, following the clash at Tsinanfu in 1928, winch lasted for a year; and innumerable local boycotts. Only this summer Canton has been boycotting German trade all through South China, on the ground that Germany had supplied arms to its enemies in Nanking. Big centres like Shanghai and Hong Kong now have ready-made volunteer organisations to meet these emergencies and carry on essential services. But foreigners in small ports are often in dire straits. Without the Navy, the British at Swatow would have starved in 1925. One's helplessness is almost the worst part. Without a word, one's servants walk out, office staffs and labourers vanish, transport ceases. Few workers really wish to stop work, but Chinese are so timid, so wholly subservient to mass dictation, that they dare not disobey. One can never get in touch with the real boycott leaders, who are away behind the scenes, some of them, undoubtedly, politicians in high position. The boycott organisation is now so perfect that it can be set in motion at a touch. The Government cannot control, even if it would. One important factor in the immense profit made by the agitators, ransacking the Chinese shops for "enemy goods," and exacting enormous fine from the owners. Japan's investments of £52,000,000 in China proper include over twenty banks, £23,000,000 in cotton mills, £5,700,000 in shipping, small shops innumerable. I can picture them under the recent boycott, the 40,000 mill hands gone, factories silent, ships tied up, banks and business houses

deserted and dead, and the Japanese, brave people though they are, trembling behind barred doors.