SHANGHAI RIOTS

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2709, 17 June 1925, Page 9

SHANGHAI RIOTS

Symptom Of Widespread Unrest EXPLOITED BY INTERESTED PARTIES. [By Electric Cable —Copyright.] [Auat. and N.Z. Cable Association.] (Received Tuesday, 7.15 p.m.) LONDON, June 15. In the House of Commons, in replying to a suggestion that the trouble at Shanghai was due to low wages and the employment of children, the Hon. A. M. Samuel, for Foreign Office, emphasised that tire Government had done all it could to improve the conditions of labour within the International settlement, but it had no control outside. The mob at Shanghai was very large and of murderous intent. Had it succeeded in seizing the arms at the police station, there undoubtedly would have been mort bloodshed. The British policy in connection with China was adopted in concert with the other powers interested and no points of difference Sad arisen. The casulties of Shanghai numbered 21 Chinese killed and 65 wounded, while one American hifd been wounded.

The British Consul at Hankow reported that the firing there was inevitable. Had the Chinese authorities co-operated with the defence force, deplorable loss of life would have been avoided. Tile disturbances at Shanghai and Hankow were the symptom of deep and widespread nnrest, which was being exploited by interested parties to stir up feeling against the Powers with the largest interests in China, who were, therefore, deeply concerned to co-operate with China to secure progress reforas. The surest remedy for anti-foreign feeling in China would lie in an attempt by the Treaty Powers to carry out the decisions of the Washington Conference in regard to co-operation between the Powers and China jn measures beneficial to China. The Government was considering tbe. best means of overcoming the difficulties, arising largely from the absence of effective Government in China. He trusted the forthcoming conference on internal traffic in China would afford an opportunity of ’ removing such obstacles and dissipating the present atmosphere of distrust and inaugurating an era of fruitful co-opera-tion between China and the Powers.

In replying to Mr MacDonald, Mr Baldwin gave an assurance that the Government was co-operating with the Powers in taking every step possible to prevent the disturbances becoming a really big international trouble in the Far East. There was every reason to believe the Powers and the Chinese Government’s commissions of inquiry at Shanghai would co-operate most heartily.