SITUATION IN CHINA.

Otago Witness, Issue 3111, 29 October 1913, Page 73

SITUATION IN CHINA.

INTERESTING LETTER FROM THE

REV. MR MAWSON

GENERAL LAWLESSNESS IN THE PROVINCES.

(Fhom Oub Own Cobbespondent.) PALMERSTON N., October 21. A reign of terror .exists in China according to a very interesting letter on the situation received by the Rev. A. Don from the Rev. William Mawson, of the Canton Villages Mission. The letter is dated September 18, and states that the political conditions are still most unsettled. The net result of the second revolution seemed to be that it had enabled Yuan Shih-Kai to get his feet astride China. He had five generals established with their armies at strategic centres, from which he could conveniently strike down any opposition that threatened. The city of Canton was quiet, but General Lung and his soldiers were not popular. Two days previously he had seized Mr Chan King \Va, the "man who had made such a splendid chief of police during the last two years, and had had him shot along with another man on the charge of planning another revolution. Mr Chau King Wa had kept a firm hand upon the unruly element of Canton right through the troubles, and the unruly were rejoicing in liis death. Many people, however, were bitterly saddened. The foreigners knew him best, as the founder of the school for slave girls and of a Government school for blind girls, and also as a sympathetic helper of the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Kunk Yee Hospital and other Government institutions. He was not a Christian, but he sent his son to the Canton Christian College, in which institution he took a keen interest. He was a reformer of the true type, and it was a ghastly tragedy that the new Government had no use for him except in his grave.

lii the country the revolt had given rise to another era of lawlessness and robbery, even worse than the one of the previous revolution. There were few roads at a distance from the military stations, where one was not liable to be held up. Even the common clothing of the poor was considered worth carrying off. In one district (the Fa Yuen) there was an epidemic of assassination going on. The robbers were seizing tlie opportunity to have their revenge on those who had been attempting to clear them out of the villages in the earlier part of the year. In one village they had seized in broad daylight (2 p.m.) four men of a party who were returning from a feast, and had taken them outside the village and shot them. They had been after the good friend of the missionaries, Mr Thui Man Kwan, for some months, but so far he had been able to keep out of their hands. They had had ambuscades laid for him, and for six months he had never "gone out without an armed guard. A month before things had been getting so hot that he had gone down to the city where he had since resided. One of the four men shot belonged to his guard. They had gone to the feast without their arms, and in the face of Mausers and revolvers no one dared lift a hand to save them.

Similar things were happening in other villages. One man, baptised in the spring, was a doctor in the Cheung Kong market. He had a short time before returned home to his village in the Tsung Fa district, and there he had been murdered by robbers because of some steps he had taken against them. Day by day tales of.wrong, murder, and terrorising were coming in. The hope was that General Lung would be able soon to establish a Government of some kind strong enough to keep a semblance of order in the country. At present General Lung and his soldiers were by no means popular. The reports of the doings of the soldiers were far from good, and the general opinion was that there will be another revolution before the country settled down. In the meantime the people must live. Outwardly things looked quiet, but there was an air of subdued fear.