PERIL OF FOREIGNERS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 August 1931, Page 7

PERIL OF FOREIGNERS

CHINESE AUTHORITY FAILS

EXTRA-TERRITORIAL RIGHTS

THORBURN DISAPPEARANCE

NEW ASPECT INTRODUCED

British Wireless.

Rec. 5.5 p.m.

Rugby, July SO.

The Manchester Guardian, in a leading article on the disappearance of John Thorburn says: “It is clear that in spite of the special privileges, British subjects cannot be protected in many parts of China because of the collapse of civil authority. This places the whole question of extra-territoriality on an entirely different footing from that which it occupied in the past. The Thorburn case is bound to have considerable influence on the negotiations which have been taking place spasmodically for a long time over the abolition of the legal privileges which British subjects enjoy.

“In China it is evident that up country English lives could only be adequately guaranteed if we secured at our own cost the adequate policing of the •country. Such a programme is entirely out of the question, but in the treaty ports, and especially Shanghai, the posi-. tion is quite different. There the safety of foreigners can be adequately guaranteed, and the existence of these settled centres of business is of great advantage to China in her present time of anarchy.”

The disappearance of Thorburn, an English boy aged 19, has been the subject of an urgent Note to China requesting that those responsible should be adequately dealt with.