head of the Mixed Commission was Mons. Tripier, Counsellor of the French Legation at Peking, Britain was represented by Mr. Vereker, First Secretary of H.M. Legation at Peking, and America, Japan, Belgium and Italy were represented respectively by Messrs. G. Greene, Shigemitsu, Ullens de Schooten and Mendola.
The Report blamed :—
(1) The British Police Officer who ordered the Police to fire on
the strikers.
(2) The British Chief of Police, Colonel MacEwan, who did not
take command on account of absence.
(3) The American Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council,
Mr. Fessenden, held to be legally responsible.
The leakage of the contents of the Report caused great indigna- tion among the British and Americans at Shanghai, and, corre- spondingly, encouraged the Chinese nationalists in their demands for redress.
The Shanghai authorities, however, were able to persuade Chamberlain to suppress this report. Fortunately, accounts appeared in the French Press and the evidence which was published in the Chinese Press has also reached this country.
It is extremely improbable that America will ever allow the indiscriminate bombing of Canton or Shanghai, as the local British merchants and some missionaries urge, and as the Admiralty, with the "Hermes," is prepared to do.
More and more it is being realised throughout the world that Britain, isolated and alone, is arraigned before the bar of humanity on the charge of manslaughter in the Chinese Amritsars of Shanghai, Hankow and Canton.
The hopes of the imperialists are now turning to new channels ; to diplomatic methods, International Conferences, carefully stage- managed, magnificent resolutions and promises, which are never kept.
Intervention on a grand scale such as the Allies undertook after the Boxer uprising is hardly thinkable. They cannot again march on Peking and sack the palaces. Not only would America never tolerate it, but there is a fundamental difference in the situation. In those days Russia was on the side of England and France; now Russia is the best friend of China and the Russian Ambassador is doyen of the Diplomatic Corps at Peking.
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Rather do the Great Powers pray that Chang Tso Lin, the War Lord of Mukden, will once more play the game of the foreign imperialists. Half a century ago the foreign Powers helped the effete and reactionary Manchus to crush the Taiping Rebellion; and now for a dozen years they have backed and supported the forces of reaction in China. The Re-organisation Loan of 1913 provided Yuan Shih-Kai with millions, which turned him into a military despot, and enabled him to build up a huge army in the North and crush the growing germ of democracy in the South. Later, in the struggle between Wu Pei Fu and Sun Yat Sen, the Powers supported and recognised Wu Pei Fu, while the powerful clique controlling the news from Peking did propaganda against Dr. Sun Yat Sen ; and the Chinese subject to British rule in Hongkong were prevented by the Consortium Pact from giving financial aid to Dr. Sun Yat Sen.
And when Peking was at its wits' end seeking funds, Chang Tso Lin still had his group of Manchurian banks which could provide him with 50,000,000 dollars when necessary. The Man- churian banks are the Japanese Bank of Chosen, the French Banque Industrielle de Chine at Mukden, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank at Harbin. In the last month British agents have had frequent discussions with Chang Tso Lin.
In the South, Great Britain armed and organised the Anti-Sun Party in Canton, Chan Lim-pak, the compradore of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank at Canton, established a Merchant Volunteer Force, which aimed at overthrowing Sun Yat Sen.
Sun Yat Sen protested to the League of Nations and to MacDonald, then Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but without avail, without even acknowledgment.
Recently documents found on the premises of the general staff of the Yunnanese troops in Canton revealed the existence of a wide-spread plot for the overthrow of the Kuomintang Government and the establishment of a reactionary dictatorship dependent on British and Japanese support. The Commander-in-Chief of the Yunnanese troops in Canton, Yang Shih Ming, escaped on an English boat after the defeat of his army by the Kuomintang troops, and was taken to Hongkong-the centre of counter-revolutionary intrigue.
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