ANTI-FOREIGN BOYCOTT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19495, 26 November 1926, Page 11

ANTI-FOREIGN BOYCOTT.

CHINA SITUATION GRAVE.

LAWLESSNESS AT HANKOW* RISING TIDE OF NATIONALISM. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. A. and N.Z. PEKING. Nov. 24. A reign of lawlessness unequalled in the history of the Chinese treaty ports is being experienced at Hankow. The anti-foreign boycott has been stiffened and now threatens to compel foreigners to abandon trading owing to the difficulties of conducting business and securing food. The Japanese and the British traders are the Special victims of the boycott. Numbers of Japanese have been molested outside the boundaries of their Concession by pickets who patrol with pistols and threaten to shoot anyone who sells food to foreigners.' More gunboats have been ordered to Hankow. Pitched battles between foreign police and the Reds have narrowly been averted on several occasions as a result of tho latter swooping into the Concessions and commandeering all the motor-cars in the garages at the point of the pistol. Employees of foreign firms are being intimidated and industries are being slowly paralysed. The retiring British Minister at Peking predicts that a worse situation is certain to develop. He pleads for British and American co-operation to meet the rising fide of Chinese nationalism, which, ho savs, aims at the banishment of foreigners from China.

Hankow is one of the. 48 treaty ports of China. It is four days' voyage westward from Shanghai, up the Yangtse-kiang River. At Hankow another great stream joins the main river, and opposite aro the sister ports of Wuchang and Hanyang, the three having an estimated population of 1,321,000. Hankow has greatly developed during the last, 40 years, and it is now the terminus of a railway from Peking. The Bund, or river front prepared for merchandise, extends for three miles, and some of the larger buildings are almost on the scale of those on the Bund at Shanghai. The native city uv mains much as it was, with narrow streets, passages made tortuous in order to puzzle evil spirits—who can only understand straight lines—absence of sanitation and the presence of an immensely crowdeS population, which depends mainly upon the trade of the port, in its turn chiefly dependent upon Western energy. There are British, French, German, Russian and Japanese Concessions, with well-planned and electrically lighted streets, and the recreation ground and racecourse, especially the racecourse, are the delight of the natives on holidays. The foreign population of Hankow numbers about 2000; they huvo an English, a Russian and other churches, and an excellent club. Hankow was for a long time the headquarters of Marshal Wu Pei-fu, and should it be closed to Western merchants immenso loss will accrue not only to the merchants, but also to the native population of the whole district. In April last there were five river gunboats, including t/yo at Hankow, taid a gunboat of sMrifc Wrien- 1 ality may usually be seen at each of the larger river ports. For 40 years a flotilla of British gunboats has patrolled the great kiang and another flotilla, the West River, running from Hongkong past Canton and far into the southern province of Kwangsi. Up to 20 years ago British trade was prodominant in these two great river basins, and almost the only foreign flags seen on these inland waters were flown by Brisish merchant vessels and British men-o'-war. From about 1906 onwards, the Japanese and Germans began to cut into this trade, ' but the British position still remains commercially strong. British policy during all this long .period has been to send gunboats as far up the navigable Chinese rivers as possible. They suppressed piracy, supported British consuls in the treaty ports, gave confidence to British merchants, and, on the whole, got on we!) with the Chinese authorities. They do not proceed up the Chinese rivers under the licence of any treaty and Britain has stoutly maintained her privileges of maintaining these vessels of war. Most of them aro of small size, from 150 to 180 tons burden, armed with two small six-pounder guns and a few Maxims, thoir upper works armoured against rifle fire only. Though thoy have represented force, these individually weak units, of slow speed and shallow draught, commanded by young officers, have done their work by a combination of tact and the. extraordinary prestige in which the British have been held in China, at any rate, np to recent times.

During the great Boxer rebellion at tu£ beginning of this century the whole Yangtze Valley of 150,000,000 inhabitants was comparatively quiet and there were no outrages against foreigners of any nationality to speak of. This was almost entirely due to the influence of the British naval officers ou the rivers in their little ships.