FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1927. PANIC IN PEKIN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 17772, 7 October 1927, Page 8

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1927. PANIC IN PEKIN.

Three months ago it was reported in the English ptess that Pekin was .sitting* with folded hands waiting* for a new master. Obviously the old days are nearly dono and lied Pevolution is at hand. The cable messages this morning*, indicate that advices i oeeived in Shanghai from Pekin declare that tlie capital is panic stricken—the enemy is advancing without resistance. Tiro correspondents' have for some time realised the inevitable. “We firmly believe, ” wrote Sir Percival Phillips, the distinguished special correspondent of the “Daily Mail,” “that we are gathered at the bedside of a dying capital. It matters little which Southern faction enters first on the heels, of the departing hosts, of Chang* Tso-lin (tliei Pekin dictator)—-whether the blood-red agents or Moscow and Hankow, the pale pink followers of Chang Kai-shek (head of the Hanking factions' of Southerners), or the neutral-tinted “armies” that at io moment are loyal to one or other of the lesser chieftains. I’evolution comes with them., and unless a miniclo intervenes it will bring; chaos, misery, and destruction m, its wake. If the Northern generals acted instead of talked, _ they could easily check the ragged hordes now wandering towards Pekin. But the North remains, inert and the South walks easily on. Avarice, disloyalty, distrust, and indifference io an unpaid and disheartened soldiery are the stepping-stones io this empty home of a vanished Empire.” Close observers of the march of events in China confirm the considered opinion of the students of Chinese history that methods and motives in the great Empire never change. Pekin—a capital without a. country—is but a shadow of its former greatness. Presumably it faces a tragic end to a long and glorious' life. The unsuspecting Chinese embraced the emissaries of the Soviet, and now the viper is striking the hands which nourished it. Moscow has its trusted plotters everywhere. The foreigners who have lived in Pekin peacefully all their lives, loving China, and its people,, will, if the threat of i evolution is fulfilled, find themselves uprooted and tossed helplessly adrift. There is sadness, too, in the leg*ation quarter. That quiet, pleasant place, with its cool gardens and spacious mansions' enveloped by a wall of satisfying* height and thickness, isi no' less threatened with extinction. The li ed si are at the gates l . Some time ago it was reported that Chang Tso-lin was packing-, up in the intervals of saying* face by phrase-making. His henchmen smiled uneasily with one wary eye on the blue irain that waits night and day in Cheng- A on-men Station, with steam upi and bodyguard alert, ready to carry the Chinese war lord once more beyond the Great. 'Call. The Reds har r e condemned Pekin to death, and while the doctors differ the patient is sinking fast. It is well-known that the Communists' are bent on destroying every vestige of the past. Eugene Chen (one time Cantonese Foreign Minister at Hankow) repeatedly pronounced | the death sentence of Pekin. ' Palaces, temples, tombs, walls are to he swept away because they are symbols of the thing he calls Imperialism. The people of China have seen lesser examples of the work of the lied Terror in the South. Pekin is to be its chief d’oeuvre. And non- the news comes that the capital is panicstricken, as the result of the reverses suffered by the defending- armies. The doom which threatens Pekin owing to the amazing inactivity of the Northern war lords is better imagined than described. It is stated this morning* that the Northerner's were taken by surprise, but it is proposed to make a stand 120 miles from Pekin. There should haver been no surprises, since the menace is months old. Unquestionably, the danger l point in China has changed from Hankow and Nanking in the Yangtse region, to the capital of the former Chines© Empire. But dramatic! developments in China do not occasion surprise. It is widely known, for instance, that the progress of the Nanking Nationalists on the Pekin railway was unexpectedly facilitated by tbe complete surrender of the remnants, of the army owing allegiance to Sun Chung--Eang, the War Lord (mentioned in the cable messages this morning*), who held Shanghai in January. Since that ignominious withdrawal they have been making a pretence of helping to oppose the invasion of the Southerners, but failure to pay them and a general indifference to tbe ambitions of all militarists induced them to decide to see if the Southern cause Avas more lucrative. So they went over en masse, and have now been reborn as a new Nationalist army. The events of the next few days will be Avatched with anxiety throughout the world, hut it Avon Id almost appear inevitable that Avith revolution knocking at the door, only a miracle can save the once proud hut dying capital of an ancient Empire from the rutlilessness of the Red invader.