Jolly Roger on Yangtse

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 235, 23 December 1927, Page 1

Jolly Roger on Yangtse

PIRATES AGAIN ACTIVE Fight With British Patrol British Wireless—Press Assn.—Copyright RUGBY, Wednesday. ACCORDING to advices from China, pirates are again ** active on the Yangtse River between Shasi, 80 miles west of Hankow and Chenglin. British gunboats have captured a pirate tug, but the crew escaped inland.

JHE convoy of some lighters was

attacked from the riverbank, and 6 ® r *tish gunboats replied with their fun armament. In^tl. 6 Syaboats at present employed Pc) v . pirate patrol” are the Gnat, t-ncket, Mantis and Teal. -‘“ e House of Commons, the SecSiv °* State for Foreign Affairs, a g Austen Chamberlain, was, asked r ae was aware of the disregard of asonable security for trade shown eotne of the Northern Chinese • arv o’ and especially by the miliGovernor of Shantung, General torv Tsung-chang, in whose terriBmh ? pen confiscation of valuable furred mercllan di3e had recently oc-

CONFISCATION OF GOODS .Sir Austen replied that on DecernSir iu British Minister at Peking, th» Sampson, had reported that ... Shantung authorities were throat--JJ® confiscate a consignment of or n' Ta lued at some 400,000 dollars, p,,,. which belonged to a °«hsh company. inese goods were being conveyed _b°ats on the Grand Canal from

Tientsin to Southern Chihli. At Lintsing, in the Province of Shantung, they were held up for the enforcement of various irregular taxes. The company agreed to pay these taxes, but in spite of this orders were given for the confiscation of the goods. “PURE ROBBERY” It was alleged, said Sir Austen, that these orders emanated from General Chang. In any case the action of Shantung authorities appeared to he pure robbery. Sir Miles Lampson had made the strongest possible verbal representations to the Foreign Minister in Peking, Mr. Ou Sing, who had promised to do his best and to take up the matter with the Prime Minister, Mr. Wellington Koo, and with Marshal Chang Tso-Lin’s headquarters. The Minister confessed, however, that he himself had no authority in Shantung. The British Government could not overlook such a gross violation of the elementary rights of British merchants, and counted on Marshal Chang Tso-Lin, who claimed to control the Province of Shantung, to take steps to secure the release of these goods.—A. and N.Z.