NATIVE LAW COURTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 11

NATIVE LAW COURTS.

MILITARY OVERAWE JUDGE. METHODS OF NATIONALISTS. SHANGHAI, Aug. 10. The Chinese head of the Pawnbrokers' Guild was recently seen straggling with a Nationalist soldier, who was trying to force him into a hotel in the international settlement. A municipal Chinese constable intervened, but it was necessary to threaten the soldier with a revolver before h© would release the pawnbroker. Both were taken to the police station and this morning the pawnbroker appeared before the provisional Court on a charge of being a Communist. ... Evidence was not produced, but the Chinese -Judge ordered the man to ba handed over to the Nanking militarists. The Ehif.ch assessor on the Court protested, emphatically characterising the case as one of attempted kidnapping for the purpose of extortion. It appears that the Nationalists ordered the guild a month ago to- subscribe £510.000 toward a Government " loan." The guild was reluctant and provided £IOOO. whereupon the militarists announced that they would hold the head of the guild responsible, and sent an order to the Chief Judge of the provisional Court. The latter, this morning, peremptorily ordered his associate to find,the pawnbroker guilty. This is not the first of such cases, but it is a glaring example of the subordination of the judiciary for purposes of military rapacity, and has created a grave sensatiou as the Court was returned to Chinese control only last January.