CO129-501-8 General policy in China 30-11-1926 - 30-11-1926 — Page 160

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of railway employés, who had come to extract higher

wages from Mr. Sung. The doors of the Ministry were

locked before more than a few of the mob had entered.

Nevertheless Mr. Sung's bodyguards were overcome and

several of them were beaten. The Inspector General

and the Finance Minister spent an anxious hour in the

building, while the mob raged round it. Soldiers

eventually arrived and persuaded the mob to disperse (Fr. O'Malley's telegram to Peking No.22 of 22nd January) Next day (the 23rd January) Comrade Ch'en

read to Mr. O'Malley a declaration, which he proposed

to issue, fulminating against us for promoting the un-

conditional grant of the Washington surtaxes and threat-

ening "retaliatory measures, even if these involved the destruction of the Customs" (Mr. O'Malley's telegram to

Peking No.26 of the 24th January)

0

59. On the 27th January the question of the Washing-

ton surtaxes was brought up again at a meeting of the

diplomatic body in Peking. The Japanese Minister read

a long statement of policy explaining why his Govern-

ment could not accept the British proposal: and the

United States' Government had meanwhile gone back on

their previous assent. Thereupon all the Ministers

entirely reversed their attitude of seven days before

and decided that in the circumstances they preferred

complete inaction (Peking telegram to Foreign Office

No.192 of 28th January). On the morning of the same

day Marshal Chang Tso-lin told the British Military

Attache that he had ordered Dr. Wellington Koo, his

premier, to dismiss Sir F. Aglen for daring as a

Chinese

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