CHINESE BANDIT RAID.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18584, 17 December 1923, Page 9

CHINESE BANDIT RAID.

TOWN SACKED AND FIRED.

MANY CAPTIVES TAKEN.

A. .cd N.Z. SHANGHAI, Dec. 14. Despatches from Changsha declare that the Honan Province continued to suffer depredations from bandits. This time 3000 brigands.- led by the notorious Chen-yen-teh and Wang-han-ying, captured the town of Chano burned and looted houses, and kidnapped four officials and over a hundred residents, including women. Fortunately many inhabitants escaped during the pillaging. It is reported that a magistrate was killed after being taken prisoner.

CHINA' 3 MODEL PROVINCE.

WHAT CAN BE ACHIEVED.

There are many competent observers of Chinese affairs who despair of any effective reorganisation of the country. But a visit to the mountain province of Shansi will show what can be done, given competent government, to produce order out of the existing chaos, wrote the Peking correspondent of the Manchester Guardian recently. It is eleven y«iars since General Yen Hsi-shan was appointed Tutuh of Shansi. His t was one of the first appointments under the Republic, and he has remained in his post since then his title has altered in the interim to that of Tuchun and Civil Governor. General Yen was born in 1882. He graduated from a Japanese military staff school, but his first act on assuming his governorship was to propose the universal disb»ndment of troops, ~ and he himself led , the way by dismissing some 30,000 of' those under his direct control. Nevertheless, his small remaining army of 20.000 appears to command respect, for the province is never involved in the wars which run riot on all sides among the other Tuchuns, and banditry is practically unknown in. Shansi. though it is quite possible that local footpads exist here and there. The civil government is as effective as is the military, for Shansi is the only pre vince whian has effectually put down opium. There are two • distinct methods of handling the opium question. Typical of one method is the province of ifupeh. In Hupeh in 1922 a local official made a considerable haul of opium which was being smuggled down the Han River, presumably for Hankow. This he seized and placed under lock and key in his yamen while deliberating as to the best course of action. Two days later he proceeded on a tour of inspection of a neighbouring city. • On his return he found, to his surprise and dismay." that there had been a most regrettable fire in his yamen, fortunately with no casualties. The building had been totally destroyed, and all traces of the confiscated opium had vanished. Suspicious missionaries might hint that his yamen officials had had a hand in the fire, and that there was an unusual amount of opium in the neighbourhood, but after all there was no proof beyond an increased affluence on the part of the official, his concubines, I and one or two underlings who had , manipulated the deal. In Shansi there is a completely different picture. Governor Yen Hsi-shan not only issues strict orders as to the suppression of opium, but he tours the province to see that those orders are carried out, and woe betide the official who dares to evade them and is caught. If an official is reported to be addicted to the pipe himself, he is promoted to a Sost at Taiyuanfu, where he is under the rovernor's personal observation for a probationary period. If he still yields to his vice his post of authority will see him no more. All the passes into the province are watched by the military police, as is the railway, and smugglers have small chances and great risks if they wish to deal in opium in Shansi. This is by no means the only sign of public spirit, for in addition to the Iroads built two years ago by the American Red Cross China Famine Relief, the Governor has had constructed some hundreds of miles of motor and cart roads at provincial expense, greatly benefiting trade throughout the countryside. A forestry scheme has also been started, and a school of forestry was founded in Shir,si in 1916 which is doing excellent work, though its funds are limited. Governor .Yen has experimented in sheep-breeding, importing sheep from Australia, to sec if a strain suitable to the Shansi hills could be obtained. He has also established a ranch, on which he keeps good strains of horses "imported from America, in the hope that they or their offspring _ may become acclimatised. Experiments in irrigation have been made in the plains around the city of Taiyuanfu, and artesian wells have been sunk, though with little success. The province produces over four million tons of coal per annum, a fourth of China's total output, and it is estimated that Shansi alone would be capable of supplying the demands of the Far East for many years if her coalmines were fully developed on modern lines.