CO885-11 — Page 115

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

سياسات

Reference :-

C.O.882/11

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

|ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

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articulate group, and for reasons inherent in the present period of transition through which China is passing, this mark and quality of vitality in a nation is possessed by the Chinese student class. If China is to live, her students must continue to voice the new economic and political needs of the transition until a new equilibrium is established between the Chinese people and the changed environment in which they find themselves after three- quarters of a century of commercial, diplomatic and social inter- course with foreigners.

This view of the Chinese student class explains the range and depth of the repercussion of 30th May on the Nation. Along the great line of the Yangtsze-at Hankow, Kiukiang, Nanking- and in the north, notably in Peking, significant manifestations of national feeling and a new consciousness occurred. Even to-day, more than a year after the event, the conception of Sergeant Everson's action on 30th May as a massacre persists in the And the sense of wrong engendered Chinese Nationalist's mind.

is all the greater now that the bloodless handling of a far more dangerous crowd at Shanghai on the first anniversary of 30th May proves that Evanson's action was wholly unnecessary as an application of the doctrine of the preventive massacre, i.e., the prevention of a bigger massacre by the mob, which Lieutenant- Colonel Hilton Johnson and other British witnesses at the Shanghai Judicial Enquiry swore would have taken place had Everson not ordered firing into an unarmed crowd of students and others.

Owing to fighting in Canton which enabled the Government to destroy sundry rebel elements and to unify the province, the reper- cussion of 30th May was not fully felt here before the middle of June, when the real significance and gravity of the occurrence began to be understood. In Peking and elsewhere there was already a realisation that an event had taken place which was of the order of acts that create epochs in history. As Canton is the greatest Nationalist centre in the country, it is not strange that 30th May should be envisaged from an uncompromisingly Nationalist standpoint and seen to be a decisive expression of the struggle between the body of economic and political needs and ideas known as Chinese Nationalism, whose chief motive is the achievement of real Chinese independence, and the opposing system of ideas and forces which, deriving their sanction from the long series of treaties dating from the transaction of Nanking in 1842, is known as Foreign Imperialism.

This interpretation of 30th May would naturally find expression here in the form of patriotic demonstrations and other popular manifestations. And it was the driving necessity to express the Nationalist mind and feeling on a profoundly poignant act of tragedy that Canton organised the memorable demonstration of 23rd June. It is indisputable that the procession, which was the central feature of the demonstration, consisted largely of

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students and school-children, and was entirely unarmed save as to the Whampoa cadet section who were in ordinary parade attire.

The question as to which side fired the first shot is not a capital issue in view of the actual circumstances of the case and the grim results of the shooting. Never in its history had Shameen been so completely and perfectly protected. Separated by its wide canal and sandbagged, barb-wired, equipped and garrisoned by forces armed to the teeth and supported and covered by the great guns of the foreign warships in the harbour, Shameen was impregnable and absolutely safe, even on the incredible assumption that there were any real Chinese intention to capture it. There was no such intention and there could have been none, and the results of the shooting proved it. The British suffered hardly any casualties, but 50 dead and more than 100 wounded Chinese demonstrated afresh the meaning of a struggle between a fortress and a crowd. All the relevant facts of the case support the view that, even if the Shameen firing were done in the first instance in so-called self- defence (which is categorically denied), it was excessive and there- fore legally unjustified. That Shameen was, on 23rd June, 1925, in the mood and temper to act violently and excessively appears from the widely-advertised letter written by the then British Consul-General on 22nd June, but actually received by Mr. Wu Chao-chu, former Minister for Foreign Affairs, about the hour of the actual shooting on 23rd June. It was sent through the post, not delivered by messenger.

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After referring to a fantastic story of certain students who had cast lots for the privilege of "posting as martyrs (which he himself had to suggest "might be the figment of a fertile imagination"), the British Consul-General went on to declare if, on the other hand, it have any solid foundation in fact and should action of the kind be contemplated and take place, I have the honour solemnly to warn the Government of Kuang- tung through you as their Foreign Secretary that any attempt to penetrate on the Foreign Concession at Shameen will be resisted by force of arnis and that for the consequences the Government will be held individually and collectively responsible." And he added that due precautions are, however, being taken to guard against acts of mob violence, such as have occurred at Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow, and should, unfortunately, they occur here, the blood of those who call upon crowd psychology to com- mit deeds of violence will be on their own head.' It is plain that this is the language of one who, having envisaged the possibility, if not the certainty, of shedding blood of Chinese on 23rd June, 1925, would hardly be able to restrain armed and inflamed men under his orders from doing some blood-letting on the occasion. In other words, we read the letter as a frank avowal of the British Consul-General's intention to do what Evanson had already done at Shanghai or (we say this in a purely historical sense) General Dyer at Amritsar, i.e., action based on the doctrine of the pre- ventive massacre which specialists of strong and drastic action

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