WAR IN CHINA

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, 23 January 1928, Page 7

WAR IN CHINA

beheading of communists. JAPANESE MOLESTED. TROUBLE IN MANCHURIA. (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received January 23, 8.5 a.m. SHAJNuIMaI, Jan. 22. The wholesale oeneacung of Communist agitators ol every description without trial prevented a widespread plot to plunge Hankow in a turmoil in the Cmnese Now Year holidays. Eighty heads fell in 48 hours and hundreds were shot. The tension has been relaxed through martial law being enforced. A report from Peking states that the Northern Government is considering asking the Manchurian war loid, Marshal Chang Tso-Lin to assume the Presidency, believing that civil, instead, of military, administration is more satisfactory from the viewpoint of foreign relations. . A conference of military leaders is scheduled for January 24, when it is expected that a petition will be prepared requesting Chang to assume the Presidency. . . , T A Japanese flag flying in the Liarbin (Manchuria) racecourse was hauled down and the land confiscated. A Japanese youth of seventeen years was murdered in the streets of Daiien. Three hundred casualties are reported as the result of the latest clashes between the Big Sword Society rebels and Government troops. The_ Big Sword Society comprises old-faslnoned Chinese who still wear pigtails. They are peasants who are not connected with the Nationalist or Communist movements and have risen solely to combat the rapacity of misgovernment which has been the outcome of continuous warfare in the locality. The danger resulting to Japanese residents in. the affected district has raised the question of the dispatch of Japanese troops for their protection. The Japanese consul has vigorously protested, and the situation is regarded as serious ow'ing to the insolent attitude of the Chinese toward the Japanese.— A. and N.Z. cable.