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for punishment), and the possibility of a plentiful and cheap supply of food from the committee's reserves and the adjoining country should make their lot a very tolerable one throughout the winter months. An outbreak of cholera in the zone, which has already claimed five lives, is causing some anxiety, but this may have the effect of dissuading Japanese intruders. The comparatively small number of refugees, a bare 20,000, for which the committee has to provide has, of course, greatly eased the organisers' difficulties. In fact, the shrinking of Hankow's total population, which a competent foreign observer has put at a present total of little over 100,000 as against nearly a million, will be a most potent factor in preventing the return of any semblance of prosperity to the city for many months to come.
9. Japanese plans for creating a puppet provincial or municipal admini- stration do not appear to have made any advance since the occupation, although a self-constituted puppet made an appearance on the day following the capture of the city.
This was one Hu Tsung-chun, who has taken up his residence in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce building. He informed a foreigner, who inter- viewed him, that he was the chief of the Hupei Provincial Self-Protection Group, that he "controlled" Wuhan, and that a greater than he would soon arrive to take over the area. He is a former division commander of Wu Pei-fu, and reached Hankow from North China via Shanghai a month before the Japanese. He informed his interlocutor that his aim was to diminish the sacrifice of the Chinese people," and also that his "Government" would fly the five-barred flag, though it was not connected with Peking. He was "carrying on the policy of Tsao Kun."
A few days later he informed the same foreigner that his "mission" would probably be unsuccessful, and that there was very little he could achieve. Indeed, it seems that the Japanese, perhaps owing to the experience of Nanking and Shanghai, are in no hurry to start a puppet administration, and at present their relations with the Chinese are being carried on through the Swastika Society, an ancient Chinese Buddhist charitable organisation with no political interests or ambitions.
10. A word should be said of the remarkable success of the measures taken by the French authorities to meet the critical situation occasioned by the Japanese occupation. Though their position, owing to the policy France has always pursued in China, enjoys the advantage (somewhat singular to-day) of being unequivocal and known in advance and they have thus been able to plan for a limited number of contingencies, the ease with which they have met the difficulties which the arrival of a Japanese army naturally created has struck all observers. The elaborate defence paraphernalia of the concession appears to have had exactly the effect calculated on the Japanese, and whenever the latter have attempted to rush the French military or naval guards into some concession about the passage of troops, they have invariably been referred to the consul (the official head of affairs), and by him to the Japanese Consul, through whom a suitable agreement has been eventually negotiated.
11. Hankow may well be congratulated on being spared the horrors and excesses which accompanied the Japanese occupation of Nanking and other cities. There is no doubt in my mind that the world-wide odium which arose from the behaviour of the invaders at Nanking induced the high Japanese authorities to take every precaution to prevent a recurrence at Hankow. Among the first to enter was a strong force of gendarmerie. This was under the command of a Captain Goto, who told Rear-Admiral Holt and myself that he had been entrusted with the protection of foreign life and property. Moreover, the leading Japanese troops were accompanied by senior officers, which, I am told, is contrary to Japanese custom. These two factors without doubt contributed largely to the orderly peacefulness with which the occupation was carried out.
At the time of writing the Japanese have been in occupation for a fortnight. There have been reports-some well authenticated-of a few excesses, but only very few. I have no doubt that there has been a good deal of looting outside the ex-concession area, but on the whole the efforts of the Japanese authorities to maintain discipline have been very successful. It is most sincerely to be hoped that both the efforts and their success will continue.
I have, &c.
C. E. WHITAMORE.
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