Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 1927. LABOUR AND CHINA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 29 April 1927, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 1927. LABOUR AND CHINA.

In February last the House of Commons discussed the situation in China, and the Opposition moved an amendment hostile to the Government. Sir Austen Chamberlain then explained Britain’s policy at length; his statement was so convincing that it was thought that the amendment would be withdrawn. Mr Ramsay MacDonald was clearly half-hearted in his criticism. But the extremists cracked the whip, and the amendment was lost in a division in which many Labour ’members refrained from voting. This was the occasion upon which Dr. Haden Guest, one of the rising men of the party, public dissociated himself from its action, saying that lie represented a large body of Labour opinion outside Parliament. Subsequently he resigned from the party by way of protest. Since February events have moved swiftly in China. There have been ■sanguinary outbreaks at Hankow and Nanking, while the Nationalists, if they did not actually participate in these, looked on with indifference, Shanghai has been occupied by the Southerners amidst much disorder. Not a week has passed but has borne additional testimony to the wisdom of the British Government in sending troops to China. But Labour, like the Bourboiis, has learned nothing and forgot- 1 ten nothing. In the second debate An the Chinese question, initiated by Mr Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour speakers advanced arguments the fallacy of which has already been abundantly demonstrated. They repeated, , without any attempt to substantiate them, charges which we have heard ad nauseum. As Sir Austen Chamberlain once

caustically remarked, • there is a type AT... 1 Briton who appears to believe, oa principle, that no country is e;ver in the wrong 1 except his own, and that credence is to ’be given to the word of anyone rather than of the representatives of Britain. The position: taken •up by the Verities .of the Government 'was- that I 'the reported outrages were not proven, or, at the worst, greatly exaggerated. We may concede that'in the general confusion incidents are apt to be magnified. But even when due allowance .is made -ffir this tendency, this remains a long list of atrocities the genuineness of which has been definitcly established. What further evidence do these gentlemen require beyond that which is already available? It is an insult to our intelligence to describe proceedings in the disturbed areas as a “students’ rag.’’ .Does that comparison account for the murder of Mr Giles and several other foreigners? Are we to understand that the story of their death is a mere canard, or if they are, in fact, dead, that they committed suicide ? Is it suggested that the injuries to the many victims of the violence of the mob were ■self-inflicted? Are the smoking ruins of the foreign residences an optical delusion, and is the wholesale looting of foreign property which Consular officials witnessed a myth? As plausible is the allegation that the presence of, British troops was provocative and contributed to the, disorder. The inference is that had there been no troops the disorder would not have occurred, or wbuld have been less serious. A more rational view is that these troops saved the foreign element from tribulations infinitely more grievous.