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THE CHINA MAIL EXTRA.
HONGKONG, FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1920.
TO-DAY'S
CABLES.
(Reuter's Sarvice to the China Mail)
ASQUITE REPLIES TO PREMISA.
THE PARTY GAME.
**
LONDON, March 24.
Keen interest was taken in 'the speech by Mr. Asquith at the National Liberal Club this afternoon owing to the expectation that he would reply to Lloyd George's speech of March 13. Mr. Asquith said the Premier's. challenge ought be taken
10
up immediately. Fusion Was being watered down into. closer co-operation." The real point was whether, they were going to respond to the Premier's invitation. Hence labour was hostile, and since independent liberalism in tended to remain independent, were they going to link up with. Tory or- ganisations which were the only organisations satisfying Lloyd George's definitions and likely to supply his need? Why should they? Why should | Liberals abdicate their primary functions as a great historic party? He opined that nothing more would be seen of the anti-dumping bill. He declared that the government's Irish bill did not seek to amend but to repeal the Home Rule act and substitute therefor a fantastic scheme which travestied self-government. Liberals were asked to agree to fusion owing to a new peril vulgarly called Bolshevism. He denied there was any antithesis. between Liberalism and Labour. Labour owed everything to Liberalism and there were many roads they could travel ride by side. The Premier's appeal was on the lines of class cleavage and was most michievous. Free Liberals were not going to be tied to the Tory chariot wheels. They were going to retain, preach, and practise their principles. (Cheers)."
THE INFERENTIAL WAY.
A NEW METHOD OF PRODUCING PARLIAMENTARY
INFORMATION.
LONDON, March 24.
In the House of Commons, replying to Mr. T. P. O'Connor with regard to the fracas in Dublin on March 22, Mr. Macpherson stated that Dublin was now quiet. A military court of enquiry would be held. There was no evidence of any deaths of civilians due to the military. Replying to Mr. Kenworthy, Mr. Macpherson said he had no information that an aringured car turned out and used a machine gun.
Mr. MacVeigh pointed out that the commander at Cork stated he was unaware of the murder when he went to the lord mayor's house, thus coniradicting Mr. Macpherson's statement in the House of Commons on March 22, that the military went to the house in order to trace the murderers, Mr. Macpherson replied that he was asked to justify the action of the military and he did so in the only possibly inferential way, believing
his statement to be true.
A BOAST.
LONDON, March 24. · Mr. Kellaway, deputy minister of munitions, in a speech at Bedford *stated that the total realised by the sale of surplus war stores and stores purchased on trading account was £330,000,000, whereof £125,000,000 represented the sale of wool, hides, etc.. bought on trading account, by which the exchequer had benefited.
BRITISH NAVY,
LONDON, March. 24.
In the House of Commons, replying to Viscount Curzon, Mr. Long stated that the ships of all big gun type were not required for our postwar feet, but the method of their disposal was not yet settled. These include the Agincourt, Ajax, Dreadnought, Superb, Inflexible, and Indomitable. The remainder are all included in the post-war fleet.
LONDON," March 25, Sir E. C. Tennyson D'Eyncourt, the metropolitan police magistrate, lecturing at the institution of naval architects on the lessons of the war, said the battleship. Hood was reconstructed to withstand several torpedo hits without seriously lessening her speed. America was already following the example set by the Hood.
Archibald. Hurd strongly deprecated the view held in the dominions that seapower is a thing of the past on account of the development of aircraft. That would mean the sacrifice of British naval traditions.
DECIMALS O&MTED
ROYAL COMMISSION DECLARES FOR CURRENT COIN.
LONDON, March 24,
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The royal commission on the advisibility of introducing a decimal coinage has reported against the proposal, declaring the advantages to be grined in keeping accounts are in no wise commensurate with the loss of convenience of the existing system for other purposes. The report also states that bankers and financial houses engaged in the finance of overseas trade consider that no great benefit to overseas trade could be expected from the adoption of the decimal system.
ANOTHER BOLSHEV.K CLÁIN.
LONDON, March 20.
A Bolshevist wireless claims they have occupied Ekaterinodar.
EXPER I CRITICISES PRESIDENT'S SUZEMF.
WASHINGTON, March 25
SIBERIA WOULD RESTORE ORDER IN 30 DAYS.
Rakova Village (Siberia), January 17 by courier to Vladivostock), Febru ary 11This morning I came by peasant sled into this tiny frozen vil- lage in snow-blanketed hills, seventy- five miles from Vladivostock. It is the stronghold of the partisan forces. whom the few remaining Kolchak officers love to call Bolsheviks."
In front of my sled rode four boy soldiers on farm horses, while four- more galloped in the rear. Any one of them would gladly have died be- fore he would let the least barm" be- fall me, yet they were boys whom the people in Vladivostock said would either kill me or hold me for ransom.
Soon one of them will take this message back, through the Kolchak lines and he will be unafraid,
The report of President Wilson's industrial conference, which pro- posed a joint organisation of employers and employees as a means of preventing misunderstanding and securing co-operative effort through regional adjustment conferences, has been attacked by Mr. Gompers, who zaya the present labour adjustment machinery is far superior to that. suggested both in simplicity and effectiveness. He considers that Trade Unions afford the only hona fide effective system of representation known to American industry. -
TERNATIONAL RUGBY:
ham, England beat Scotland by 13 to 4
**You might be killed," I said to one. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders, "It doesn't matter," he **I would die fighting for answered. my ideal."
This is the spirit of these farmer boys fighting here in the snow 30 degrees below zero.
FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM.
believed to be wrong from the day They are fighting things they have they were born--reactionary ideas, old official grak, cruelties, lack of land. denials of tranchise and of a voice in affairs. They are fighting for the things they and their fathers dreaming always of land, peace,
freedom.
are
These, and only these. are the things these peasants here in the hills are fighting for, and they are the same things Russia's 150,000,000 other peasants are fighting for.
Foreign intervention backing Kolt- chak, Deniken and Yudenitch has only served to bring them together and to unite them under a common cause. If Japan decides to remain, all Russia will fight.
"Let the foreigners leave us alone and we will senle our own affairs in thirty days, one bearded peasant chief said-and he is right.
By some miracle of sentiment there is no resentment against American interference, now that we are with- drawing. and it is to us that these millions of peasants are looking hope- fully.
There were days" six months ago when we were fighting, them and American troops guarding the railroad centres made possible continuance of Koltchak's hated government, but the Siberians instinctively know that America will help them, at least econ- omically, when America understands
They have seen their side. American soldier grow to sympathize deeply with them, and they know that at heart the American boys here are the heart of America.
the
They have pledged that they will let our troops withdraw quietly without interference and without touching the railroad sectors we still guard,
It is a big thing to ask them, he- cause these frozen days, when their cavalry patrols can swoop down on the railroad, destroy the tunnels, burn the bridges, and then gallop back to their hills with the assurance that none are numbered by the coming of spring- dare pursue them through the snow.
Yesterday one old peasant pointed
to a seventeen-year-old boy with a pitiful old rifle over his shoulder and proudly whispered to me: "He is my son. He's fighting for me."
PROTECTED BY PEASANTS,
That is the spirit of these personis, In scattered de chments varying in size from 100 to several thousand they have been carrying on a guerilla war- fare against Koltchak since the days almost vear ago when the Oinsk Government showed it was undemo- cratic and reactionary. The peasants in the Siberian hills supported them. hid them, fed them, believed in them. In the summer, when expeditions. swept up the valleys punishing the natives and burning the villages, the days were dark, but now, with the winter on their side, Koltchak broken, and their forces increased by thousands of desertions, they have fresh hopes.
They number fully 100,000 soldiers, and they are all working close", în harmony with the city revolutionists. Were it not for, the foreign boys they would Control Siberia in ten days. To-day the soviet" is the magic that is drawing them on.
*
I have asked hundreds of them what "Soviet
means to them, and they have always answered land and free- dom."San Francisco Chronicle.
CANDIDATES FOR PRSI-
DENT IN AM RICA.
In the contest for nomination as Republican candidate for President of the United States, General Leonard Wood is reported to be leading Senator Hiram Johnson of California, three to one.
Herbert C. Hoover, Food Adminis trator, is third and Governor, Frank Louden of Illinois is fourth.
i