THORBURN'S CAPTIVITY

Taranaki Daily News, 31 July 1931, Page 7

THORBURN'S CAPTIVITY

BRITAIN TAKES GRAVE VIEW

MINISTER REACHES NANKING

NO REPORT FOR SOME DAYS

RIGHTS OF JURISDICTION

British Official Wireless. Rec. 5.5 p.m. Rugby, July 29

Sir Miles Lampson, British Minister in China, arrived at Nanking yesterday by air for the purpose of impressing upon the Chinese Government the grave view the British Government took of the disappearance of John Thorburn, aged 19, who was arrested by Chinese military police on June 3 in connection with the wounding of two Chinese, and who was alive in their custody on June 11. “The Thorburn case is the plainest of many recent warnings of the necessity of caution in the abandonment of extra-territorial jurisdiction,” the Times stated to-day. “There is no need for a diehard attitude; the present system contains many defects and pitfalls which should be swept away, but in the treaty ports, especially Shanghai, there is a nucleus of stability which is far too important a factor in the orderly progress of China to be jeopardised by a Government unable or unwilling to compel its own servants to respect the law eleven call them to account when they have flagrantly broken it.” Questioned again in the House of Commons regarding the disappearance, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Hugh Dalton, said Sir Miles Lampson had left Peking yesterday by aeroplane for Nanking with the object of delivering the message of the British Government personally to President Chiang Kai Shek. No report was expected for some days in view of the fact that President Chiang was conducting military operations in the province of Kiangai. In the message which Sir Miles had been instructed to convey the Chinese Government was urged with all expedition to find means of persuading the military authorities in whose hands Thorburn was believed to be, of the urgent necessity of enabling the Chinese Government to carry out the ordinary obligations of a civilised State. Dr. Dalton stated six British subjects had died in captivity in China in the past three years.