TROUBLE IN CHINA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22916, 20 December 1937, Page 8

TROUBLE IN CHINA

THE PEKING ZONE !) AUCKLANDER'S LETTERS CAPTIVE MISSIONARIES / JAPANESE AND BANDITS A statement that the Japanese, contrary to their claims, were not responsible for the release of three Marist fathers who had been captured by Chinese bandits, is made in letters received by Mrs. 1. E. Bertram, of Mount Eden, from her son, Mr. G. B. Bertram, who has been in China for some considerable time. Mr. Bertram also gives an account of a number of Japanese and Chinese activities in and around Peking in refcent months, illustrating the confused state of affairs in that region. Mr. Bertram says he saw the fathers when they were being held by Chinese irregulars who had scattered the bandit forces. The priests were being held as a security for the safety of the irregulars, as the French Embassy was trying to hold back the Japanese from fighting this section of the Chinese while the fathers were still with them. Later the Japanese launched a drive against the irregulars and the release of the fathers was delayed a fortnight, although when the Japanese learned ol their presence in Peking three days after they had reached the city they claimed that a fresh Japanese offensive had succeeded in effecting their safety. Censorship ot Malls Mr. Bertram refers in his letters to the difficulty he experienced in haying his letters sent out of China. He attributes this to the fact that his name and that of his brother, Mr. J. Bertrain, a former Rhodes scholar, bad become suspect with the Japanese and says that this condition had apparently been deepened by their association with a magazine called Democracy. Other foreigners in Peking were also having trouble with their mail. Some had their letters sent straight out and received replies promptly; others had not received any letters from such countries as the United States and England for months; and others, again, were being given letters which had been delayed a month to two months in China itself. Mr. Bertram suggests that Japanese censorship at Tientsin was responsible for the delay and possible destruction ot After hostilities about Peking had more or less ceased, local foreign organisations attempted to assist in the collection of Chinese wounded. Some ot these had been lying out in the fields for weeks, living on what was given to them hy the peasants, or what they could find themselves. The foreign committees also organised a scheme for the distribution of grain to Chinese who had been hard-hit by the war. and Mr. Bertram says he drove one of the lorries until it was confiscated by the Japanese, who, however, behaved very well and paid for most of the transport they commandeered. OareßT of a Bandit Later Mr. Bertram assisted to evacuate the children of a Chinese orphanage some distance from the city, in a district that-was being over-run by bandits. For two years there had been a rather notorious bandit named Liu Jvuei Tang who, it was claimed, had been let out of prison by the Japanese, armed and supported by them, and encouraged to make a nuisance of himselt. This gave the Japanese an opportunity of calling attention to the disturbed state of the country as a reason why they should be given military control by the Chinese in order to stamp out Communism. However, when hostilities broke out, Tang had turned against both Chinese and Japanese, because further assistance was not forthcoming from the latter. The Chinese orphans, says Mr. Bertram, were offered a house belonging to a wealthy Chinese, who knew if they were sent to his house it would be given an American flag and might be left alone by the Japanese. The children were evacuated with little trouble, although Mr. Bertram was stopped once by some of the irregulars, who had mistaken his loiry and motorbus for Japanese vehicles. It was through this meeting that Mr. Bertram got into touch with the Marist fathers.