1919-04-04 — Page 5

GERMANS COQUETTING WITH BOLSHEVISM.

HUNGARIANS PROPOSE ALLIANCE WITH GERMANY.

ALLIES AGAIN NEGOTIATING WITH

BELGIANS

BOLSHEVIKS.

OCCUPY HARBOUR.

DUSSELDORF

LORD MILNER ON INTER-IMPERIAL RELATIONS.

LATEST CABLES.

TRROUGH NEUTER'S AGENCY.] CRISIS IN CENTRAL EUROPE. MILITARY MEASURES AGAINST

HUNGARY.

PARIE, March 30th.

The Council of Four is methodically working. They meet twice daily, and, though the utmost reserve is maintained in regard to the outcome of their delibera- tions, it seems certain that a certain amount of war material and equipment will be sent to Rumania, in view of the military measures necessitated by the

stablishment of Bolshevist rule Budapest.

AN OFFER TO GERMANY.

COPENHAGEN, March 31st. A message from Berlin states that re- ports were circulating in Berlin that the Bongarian and Russian Soviet Govern-

WAS

THE HONGKONG DAILY PRESS, FRIDAY, APRIL 4rn 1919.

GERMANY.

BELGIANS OCCUPY DUSSELDORF HARBOUR,

COPENHAGEN, March 30th, The Fosnische Zeitung reports that fifty Belgians occupied Duesseldorf 'har- bour, the Entente explaining that the occupation of the harbours on the right bank was essential to the protection of Rhine traffic.

THE POWER OF THE MILITARISTA.

LONDON, March 31st.

The Daily News Paris correspondent

|

THE PEACE CONFERENCE THE MILITARY SERVICE BILL

DELAYS OVER DANZIG QUESTION. COST OF ARMIES OF OCCUPATION.

LONDON, March 31al.

LONDON, March 31st. In the House of Commons, Mr. Winston Churchill, speaking on the Military Ser- vico Bill, said that the cost, in 1010, for the Army of Occupation, was estimated at £139,000,000, after deducting £70,000,000 which could be recovered from Germany It was expected to recover by salvage an amount two or three times gregier than the cost of the Armies of Occupa tion for the current year. THESMOULERING CORRIDOR OF

It is now believed doubtful whether Mr. Lloyd George will attend the next sitting of the British Industrial Conference, to be held on April 4th. The Premier may remain in Paris where the Preliminary Peace agreement is being delayed by the German attitude towards the Danzig question, and problems connected with the line of demarcation of the Rhine Pro

vinees.

FRANCE AND THE SAAR BASIN.

As regards the latter question, the chief difficulty arises from France's desire to annex the Baar basiu, which the British and American delegates oppose. There has been much discussion touching the guar antees which Franch will receive against German aggression in the event of non- annexation,

THE RECONSTRUCTION

PERIOD.

CREDITS WITH RUMANIA ARRANGED.

LONDON, March 31st.

Reuter learns that the Government have arranged to open credits with Rumania

for the purchase of inmediate necessities especially railway material. Complete

statcs that official investigator, equipment for 180,000 men will also be

ftII

whom the British Government employed during the war, has returned to Paris from Germany and presented a report to the Delegates.

He regards scriously the coquetting of the Germans with Bolshevism and says that it is the last desperate venture of

the militarista, who hope that if Germany

ments had offered to conclude an alliance goes Bolshevik, she will drag the world with Germany. Enquiry evoked a semi-down with her. He expresses the opinion official statement that nothing officially known of such offers.

AUSTRIAN RAILWAY STRIKE OVER.

rosume

VIENNA, March 29th. The railwaymen decided to work at twelve tonight, owing to Ger nan Austria having food for only three days.

It was stated in Vienna that one rea son for the cessation of the railway strike was that it might be made a pretext for the occupation of German-Austria by large bodies of French troops, which, it Was believed, would be despatched against Hungary and the Russian Bolsheviks,

NATIONALIST RISING IN

EGYPT.

ENQUIRY TO BE INSTITUTED.

LONDON, March 31st.

that many of the disorders attributed to the Sparticiats were really originated by the militarists and that a change in the Government is necessary to break the power of the militarists. He foreshadows

π

coalition of the Independent and Majority Socialists and the middle class

Pacifista.

TRADE WITH NEUTRAL COUNTRIES.

COPENHAGEN, March 31st. In order to assist Germany to obtain credit from neutral countries and pur chase foodstuffs, Marshal Foch telegraph. ed from Spa, intimating that Gormany would be allowed to negotiate with neutral arms, provided the approval of the Supreme War Council was obtained,

sent.

CANADA GRANTS A LOAN OF £5,000,000.

LONDON, March 31st. The Canadian Government is granting Rumonia a loan of £1,000,000 for the pur- chase of agricultural necessities.

POLAND.

NEW COMMANDER OF ALLIED FORCES.

PARIS, March 30th. General Henrys is about to leave Paris for Poland, where to will take command of the Allied forces.

THE ALLIES AND RUSSIA.

FRESH ATTEMPT AT NEGOTIA:

TION.

LONDON, March 31st.

It is rumoured in Paris that the Entente Powers are opening fresh nego- tiations with M. Lenin,

BRITISH PRISONERS NOT MALTREATED.

LONDON, March 31st.

In the House of Commons, Sir Cecil Harmsworth stated that the number of

In the House of Commons, in reply to a declaring that Germany's trade must be to be very large. Replying to the Guy

question, Major Wedgwood stated that an enquiry would be instituted into the Causes of the recent outbreak in Egypt at abo earliest possible date, but law and order must first be restored.

BRITISH RULE IN EGYPT CRITICISED.

LONDON, March 31st. In the House of Commons, Mr. Winston Churchill, referring to the criticism that the situation in Egypt wea due to the Military Government, remark.

FLAME."

From the White Bea to the Caspian, there wVELS n moldering corridor of flame. Little States were in the direst peril, and immediately we brought back our Armies we would be powerless to influence the course of events in Europe. THE DISTRIBUTION OF TROOPS.

The distribution of troops would be approximately as follows:-In Great Britain, 170,000; France, 120,000; in the Rhine, 264,000; in Italy and the adjucent regions, 10,000.

JUGO-SLAV DIFFERENCES. The presence of troops in the last-men- tioned areas was due to the request of both parties, we order to adjust lament abio differences between Italy and the Jugo--Slavs and prevent troubles between the local populations in those places where the troops of no other nation would

AERIAL DEVELOPMENT. TRANS-ATLANTIC FLIGHT PROPOSED,

ST. JOHN's (Newfoundland), Mar. 30. The British airmen, Hawko and Grieve, arrived to-day with a Sopwith aeroplan for a trans-Atlantic flight.

They propose to stoca on April 10th, and hope to reach the British Isles in

nineteen hours.

EMPIRE-BUILDING.

A SPECIAL IMPERIAL CÔN?

FERENCE.

LONDON, March 31st. In the House of Commons, at question time, Mr. Bonar Law stated that the Imperial Government would consult the Dominion Prime Ministers before they re-

THE OPIUM TRADE IN ENGLAND.

ENGLISH GIRLS AS CHINESE

AGENTS

Much has been learned about opium traffic through the Billio Carleton, cose (says The Star) but much remains un- known. The system, for instance, by which a market for opium was gradually. transferred from the East to the West End was only built up after laborious: years and on carefully laid plans,

Some 10-years ago I met in the East- End two Englishwomen who had become so Chinese, through constant association with

Ching" that they had earned the sobriquets," Chine-Face Nell" and Chinese Berths. These two were, I believe, the first to begin the spread of opiam to the uninitiated.

SELECTING THE PRETTIEST GIRLS. turned home, regarding the most conveni. The system aprend. Ching" found ent time and method for holding a specialit paid. He, accordingly went into the Imperial Conference to consider intor-Im- streets, selected some of the prettiest girls he could find, and lavished Juxury on porial constitutional relationships.

Lhem. For their rags and penury he gave them no clothes and wealth, and after about four montba with him they were sent forth into the West End to spread the cult

EARLIER CABLES.

LORD MILNER FORESHADOWS,

IMPORTANT CHANGES.

LONDON, March 30th. Lord Milner, interviewed by the Sun-

day Express, replying to the inter- viewer's suggestion that there were signs of impatience appearing in the Do minions, admitted that there was a cen tripetal tendency in the Empire to-day, with Great Britain and the Dominions

In places like Leicester Square they became acquainted with the wealthier. seamy side of life. They say men se kind of profligate and played on the

an fints provided by

of their times, and at last, in the Pin

they would produce an opium Pioral por-

Amongst the debauchees and verta opium became a solaes for weariness and worry.

introduced their spread the scourge. "These girls eventu friends to it. Chinese students helped to

The

be welcome. There were no troops any thinking of their own affairs, but this ally spread to the stages.

where cngaged in beneficial task.

THE MIDDLE CAUCASUS AND

P more merciful or

MESOPOTAMIA.

In the Middle Caucasus there were 75,000 troops which, it was hoped, would be soon substantially reduced. They were retained at present merely to prevent up- risinge, until decisions had been reached at the Peace Conference.

In Mesopotamia, there were 30,000; and in North Russia and Siberia, 22,000.

Of these Armies of Occupation, number. ing 889,000, there were 208,000 non-combat

anta.

→ I6 was impossible to get the forces re- quired by voluntary menos before the Peace Treaty was finally rutified.

The Bill passed its third reading.

COURTS MARTIAL.

was purely temporary. Not merely the blood shed on the battlefield, but the fact that hundreds of thousands of men from the Dominions lived among us for four years, had strengthened the sense of real. brotherhood, which could never be de- stroyed.

This tendency was reflected in our con- stitutional machinery. Dominion Pres miers had been called to the councils of tho War Cabinet. This temporary expedient muet become a

periment policy.

Continuing, he said:

The same thing goes on in the East End. But how a man or woman of any standing can enter an East End opium den after viewing it from the door for the first time, let alone revisit it after having smoked there, I cannot imagine..

A TYPICAL DEN

I have seen many dens in my time, nad I have never encountered such apparent poverty se they display walls colour washed and pictureless, perhaps &

A broken chair or two, but generally a rickety table. and a stool for all the furniture.

I was in a den a few weeks ago. One Round could hardly see noross the room. the walls were a number of shelves, ship's bunk fashion, whose only covering wh piece of grass matting. On these shelves were men and women, young and old, in various stages of undress, some strongly held under the drug's influence, others bal comatose, and one or two still wok- ing.

A lighted lan was still

The opium fumes with a smell as of boiled as potato peelings-filled the place The window curtains were tight drawn. On ons side of the room - a woman... BUDer- intended the boiling of some rice and the cooking of the opinm. PULSEA This was the usual, den twenty ago. To-day things are practically the same, except that beds may often ba found, scantily covered with grase mate

or cheap wool, tismokers lie crossways on the beds

mattresses

"In every administrative act you coght think of the Dominions friends and relations. The British Empire is not a Delian League. We are free and equal members

community, and show no hostility to foreign friendly nations, still we will give preference in all things to our own family."

of

one

while

пе

slightly

Lord Milner welcomed the decision in ungainly obliviour of sex, being

A NEW COMMITTEE APPOINTED.

LONDON, March 21st. In the House of Commons, Capt. Guest said that Mr. Justice Darling would pre- immediately to relax the restrictions on aitle over

the Courts Martial Comtrade with the Empire, pointing out that mittee, which would include Mr. he was not responsible for them.-

Pre-

and apparently

clothed:

indiscriminately mixed. The same Tipa passes all round, much as half a dozen men will take a pull at a mag of beer. * A DISGRACEFUL AFFAIR,

Do not imagine that this opium amok

I know at this ent in all big cities.

German semi-official newspapers de British subjects detained by the Russian Horatio Bottomsley, M.P., Lord Hugh ference was a much wider. thing than a |

Mr. B. Walsh, M.P., Lord Cavan, Sir system on its own merits and then give over to the Chinese body and tone, mand the abolition of this condition, Bolshevist Government was not believe Cecil, M.P., Major C. Lowther, M.p mere matter of tarifa. Every 'nation in ing is confined to London. It is soeve

the Empire ought to settle its fiscal moment a white woman who has goze

Felix Cassel, Major-General Childs and proference to the others. Major-General Mellor, to inquire into

changing, her habitation as soon

which sho lives becomes too

entirely free,

THE JANUARY DISTURBANCES.

COPENHAGEN, March 31st.

who travels the gbbo in the opium trade,

the

erament's intimation that the Bolshevist lenders would be held personally respons-

Preference embraged emigration, ship ible for maltreatment of British prison- the laws and rules of procedure regulat ping, cables, and finance. Emigration for her. The existence in the East ing courts martial both in peace-time should be directed, firstly, to the Domin

A telegram from Berlin, dated Marchers, M. Tehitcherin denied that prisoners

31st, states that the Independent Social- iet, Herr Dacumig, the second President of the Greater Berlin Executive Council, has been arrested on suspicion of being the ringleader of the January distur- bances,

BOYCOTTING THE GERMAN, AUSTRALIAN FIRMS COMMEND- ABLE ACTION.

MELDOURNE, March 21st. Two leading Australian firms, manu- facturing chemists, received requests from a New York Gorman firm for a resump-

were in any way ill-treated.

WESTERN UKRAINE AGREES TO

ALLIED WISHES.

BERNE, March 30th. The Government of the Western Ukraine has notified Paris that they nejuicsce in the wishes of the Entente.

THE EX-KAISER.

SIDE-LIGHT ON HIS LIFE IN

HOLLAND.

LONDON, March 31st. Mr. Harold Begbie, writing to the

and in war time, and make recommenda- tiona

ions, secondly, to the United States, as a great Irea community with like ideals, and, lastly, to other countries liko Argentine.

women living, on food many an English

End of London alone of hundreds of theser

man cannot buy, taking the best acts at the theatres, and living in well-appointed homes in the West End, proves the

,proves the magni tu e of

the traffic

Most of the opium that comes i into this BRITISH LABOUR.

country is smuggled through the bilges The Government and the Colonial Office and engine-rooms of cargo ships. The OBSTINACY OF WELSH MINERS.

smaller quantities are hidden in thes believed in strengthening our own

folds and seats of the men's clothing LONDON, March 31st.

Dominions, our own friends and par A few days ago oplum was detected in a The South Wales Miners' Conference own trade frit.

Beaman's Similarly, as regards

tic agents to he Accredited

well known to has rejected the Sankey award, and ad-shipping, cables, wireless, and fiance, smugglers are always to be

found at the vised the miners, by a majority of 06 the aim of the Centre of the Empire docks. Others never leave their little grocery shops down Limehouse way, and votes, against the acceptance of the re- ought to be to help the sister communi-

to the come those with opium for Bale, A Committee Duy a pound of currants, go into the beale commendation of the Miners' Federation. ties before anyone else.

a-chat over what has hap-- parlour for of the Cabinet would be created to deal pened since the two laat met; and there THE BLOCKADE.

specially with Imperial issues and exchange their contraband for enormous foreign policy for the Empire.

sutba, Ching can well afford it, "for LATER. be execta a huge price for the drag? The Prime Minister, the Colonial, piece, the size of a walnut will sell for Foreign and Indian Secretaries, and, 226 to £30 in the West End. Amazing probably, the Secretary for War and the fortunes have been aroasted by Chinese The First Lord of the Admiralty would be this illicit trade, ex-officio members of such a Committee. Other Ministers could attend when the nced arose.

s that whatever might be said of British soldiers, they were generally more in de- mand in every country of the world as law. givors and pacifiers than soldiers of any other country. (Cheers.) As a matter of Fact, British rule, under which Egypt had prospered so enormously, had never been tion of relations, which were promptly Daily Chronicle, from Amerongen, claims RESTRICTIONS IN THE ADRIATIO military, but civilian. In time of war, and emphatically refused. Exceptional steps had been taken, but tho country had been administered through FRENCH MILITARY CREDIT.

civilian authorities.

THE

PRELIMINARY

PEACE

TREATY.

PREPARING FOR THE GERMANS AT VERSAILLES.

PANIB, March 30th.

It is semi-officially stated that M. Dutaste, the Secretary-General of the Pesco Conference, visited Versailles this afternoon, in order to arrange for the holding of the Congress for Ponco Pro- Timinaries.

MOTION FOR REDUCTION DEFEATED.

to have been admitted to an intimate interview with the ex-Kaiser. He says that Count Bentinck is not an old friend of the ex-Kaiser, whom he received to oblige the Dutch Government. * PARIS, March 30th. The ex-Kaiser, is not, by any meant, a The Chamber of Denation, after, an all-broken man. He is stili full of energy, night sitting, rejected, hy 102 votes to though his hair has turned white. But 131, the motion of the Socialist, M. he has abandoned outings and wood-chop. Renaudel, for the reduction of military ping, and his sole open-air exercise now credite to £350,000,000 for the second consists of a half-hour walk round the quarter of 1910, thereby giving a vote of confidence in the Government, which M. Pichon and M. Abram, the Under- Secretary for War, asked for.

As soon as the great Powers have

M. Abram declared that the Franch finally decided the text of the Prelimin

forces in Itussin were as small as it was Trosty, the German plonipotentiarica, headed by Count Brockdorff von Tantrau, possible. The Government did not wish will be summoned to Versailles. About to send an expedition to Rumin, and not Tho They will be lodged in the Town Hill Allied policy with regard to Rusin was 900 Gormnos altogether are expected. another man would be sent there. Preparations for their installation will to lend all possible assistance against coupy at least three weeks, so the Con Bolsheviem, in food, clothing, storon, to CB cannot

until after to Peland, Rumanit, and the Baltic Foster.

Staion

well

open

most.

WITHDRAWN.

ROME, March 31st. The blockade of the Adriatic cessed at midnight on March 20th,

BRITISH TEA TRADE.

RE-APPEARANCE OF THE HIGH GRADES.

LONDON, March 25th. The removal of the control on the price, of ten yesterday resulted in a much larger supply being marketed High

BRITISH CREW AND SURLY

GEHMANSA.

There would also doubtless be & com- mittee of the Cabinet for Home Affairs, while the whole Cabinet might meet na The Steamer Stockport, with before to consider any great issue in German oivilians on board, ordered for volving the fate of the Government.

repatriation through Rotterdam, put back. The Imperial Committoo of the short time after Botting out from Hall. Cabinet should be open to statesmen of the master reporting that the crew. bad the Dominions ne the War Cabinet had refused to sail without an

armed guard been, The great point was that the re. It is stated that when the Germans, were

quality teas arò again on sale, China Permanently sit in tho Imperial Com- árxious them as a ..

At other times, he remaine in his room tea sold at 4/- and lower grade tona es reading to the ox-Empress, while she is low as 2/- per pound. buay with her neclllework, and writing his autobiography.

The ex-Kaiser frequently expresses appreciation of the religious atmosphere of the Castle and does not fear a public trial. He anticipates spending a peaco ful retirement in Germany.

THE SILVER MARKET.

SINGAPORE, March 29th The price of silver is steady at 40.3-100.

LONDON, March 28th. Bilver in quoted at 40 6-10d. The market is etenily.

The silver advanoo'is due to this Ameri. oɛn archange movement.

presentatives of the Dominions must taken on board they did not adopt very to leave this country. Tho orew

lot.

and hom miltei

Lord Milner said that the only way the vessel got into the river they absided to solve this puzzle wag that when the that if the German, turned awkward un Dominions' Premiere could not be here, the voyage thay, numbering only thirty. they should have prominent member, of would not stand much chance against 500 their Governments present to take their They; therefore, approached the captain

bo place authoritativals in the councils of with unfitate dolion a pointed

milltary protection. .it the Empire, and be up-to-date in his out that the Germans were unarmed, own bomo polities. Buob a Committee they had previously been thoroughly could have nu direct executive power, searchod, but the crow persisted in their except with the assent of the Dominion demand, and the, vosnel put backs, Thé people, but it would have the groatent miled again, with an armed guard mng- influence in shaping our policy.

plied by the Hull garrism.