TROUBLE IN CHINA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 154, 1 June 1936, Page 7

TROUBLE IN CHINA.

TENSION WITH JAPANESE. DEVELOPMENTS FEARED. PEKIN, May 30. Acute tension has followed a mishap to a Japanese troop train last night three miles from Tientsin, versions of which are in direct variance. A Japanese statement declares that a bomb exploded beneath a troop train carrying reinforcements for the Japanese garrison at Tientsin. One wagon was destroyed and several horses wounded. Tho Chinese, on the contrary, assert that the Japanese themselves loosened fishplates and prised up a length" of rail. Chinese discovered this beforo the arrival of the troop train and repaired the damage. Chinese fear that the Japanese will seize on the incident as a pretext for direct action in North China. It is reported that the Japanese have placed the Chinese officials under surveillance.

An official Japanese statement says that any disturbance will destroy SinoJapanese friendship. Japanese military authorities are devising measures for tho performance of their duty. The Chinese claim that only a patrolman’s vigilance saved the crowded Mukden express from disaster on the damaged track. The British United Press Agency’s Pekiu correspondent says that Japanese mounted machine-guns at Pekin station as three troop trains arrived and ejected journalists from tho platform. Japanese authorities have demanded that the British Embassy investigate the death of a Japanese army officer ouside a-Pekin cabaret. The allegation is that the officer was killed in a light with British soldiers from the Legation Guard “who on Tuesday night were concerned in a series of assaults ou Japanese subjects at bars and cabarets, injuring four men and a woman.” The Embassy has not commented. FINANCIAL DISCUSSIONS. (British Official Wireless.) Received June 1, 8.5 a.m. RUGBY, May 29. It was stated in the House of Commons to-dfty that Sir Frederick Leith Ross, who is now in China, will shortly proceed to Tokio to renew contacts in Japan, and have a further exchange of views on finance. He will subsequently be returning home by way of China.