CONDITIONS IN CHINA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21132, 15 March 1932, Page 11

CONDITIONS IN CHINA.

SYMPATHIES WITH JAPAN.

ENGLISH RESIDENT'S VIEWS

The sympathies of most European residents in China are unreservedly with Japan in the present troubles in the Far East, according to Mr. A. Woods, an English business man in Shanghai, who arrived at Auckland by the Tofua yesterday. Mr. Woods left Shanghai shortly before tho outbreak of hostilities there and, after spending a holiday in the Pacific Islands, is now returning to China. " The present state of affairs is the result of trouble which has been brewing for years," Mr. Woods said. " For a long time Manchuria has been independent of China, and has been exploited by Japan, to whom this territory is vitally necessary. When China started to interfere with Japan's rights in Manchuria, it was realised that matters were coming to a head.

" The anti-Japanese boycott in various Chinese cities was most ill advised as far as China itself was concerned. It resulted in tho holding up of about £15,000,000 worth of Japanese merchandise which had been bought by Chinese merchants, principally through their own banks. Consequently, tho Chinese were merely cutting their own throats and those of their merchants and bankers as well. Financial affairs in China lapsed into chaos; internal loan bonds fell as much as 50 per cent."

Although lie left Shanghai several clays before tho actual outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Woods was inclined to regard some of the reports of fighting in and around the European Settlement as being a little exaggerated. The Chinese armies were hardly more than a rabble and could not hope to stand for long against tho trained man power of Japan. Tho student class in China had really precipitated tho present trouble; a great mass of the Chinese people asked only to be left in peace.

" From what T have heard, conditions in China should become much more quiet in tho near future," Mr. Woods said.