TURBULENT CHINA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16201, 26 November 1926, Page 8

TURBULENT CHINA

PLi'GHT OF FOREIGNERS FOOD CRISIS AND RIOTS (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Asm.) (Australian and N.Z. Oablo Association.! (Received November 20, noon). PEKLN, Nov. 25. Japanese residents in Hankow are facing a food crisis as a result of the rigid picketing of the concession's markets and food shops by strikers.

The city is in the throes of a general strike of servants, wharf coolies, and foreigners' employees, who are responsible for the picketing. Large shipments of foodstuffs are being sent from Shanghai to ilaukow in response to an urgent appeal. All business is at a complete standstill, and .shipping operations are suspended. Several overseas vessels are held up rind are unlikely to get awav for some months. The river is rapidly falling. A majority of the newspapers have suspended publication owing to the employees striking.

British and Americans have armed themselves and an' patrolling the eon cessions. The milfiary declare Dial they are powerless to control the situation, which is in the hands of the laborers. Looting of foreign property outside the concessions has commenced, and riots are hourly feared. Foreign living squads are turning out frequently to quell the outbreaks between mobs and foreigners, who insist on protecting their property. Bloodshed has been narrowly averted often.

The larger foreign warships are leaving shortly, as the river is falling, causing anxiety to residents. I'angtszo lightkeepers have declared a strike in sympathy with the ''Reds," who have commandeered all Tin' lightships. The navigation of China's greatest, waterway is a hazardous undertaking. Customs cruisers are leaving Shanghai to cope with the situation. '' GROSSLY EXAGGERATED'' ATTACK ON MISSIONARIES It is simply amazing to realise the extent to which certain turbulent, happenings in China can be garbled and grossly exagger.ited. it. will be. remembered' that in September last, most alarming reports were telegraphed, about a Chinese uprising against the foreign missionaries in Northern China, giving detailed accounts of the wholesale butchery of some of them and their adherents, and also of the many who had been held for ratjsom by undisciplined troops. From letters received recently from China if would* seem that these reports had little basis in fact. Miss McQuire, one of the lady missionaries, has written to a lady friend in Auckland, relating 1 that at the time of the trouble they were'on furlough at one of Ihe free ports on flic COSut, bill on reluming to their station at Nauchang, they found everything intact, and their servants and the Christianised Chinese of the district, of which there were a considerable number, unharmed.

Captain Blackbnme. of Wellington, who furnished the above reassuring information, stated that none of tho people in New Zealand who had been associated wit!) missionary work in China, believed the messages when they arrived for the simple reason that General Feng, who then dominated that district, Mas well known to them as a Christian gentleman, as were most of his officers, and his army of something like 150,CC0 men was perhaps as well disciplined as any in the world. It may have suited some people to represent that Feng and his army had turned "'red." but the missionaries knew that such could! never bo the case, as tiiey knew the man and what he stood for over a, number of trying years.