Directory_and_Chronicle_1928 — Page 826

CANTON

for the suppression of the revolt and the annihilation of the Volunteer Corps. Accord- ingly, on October 15th the whole commercial district of Saikwan, which the volun- teers had barricaded for defence, was surrounded by Sun's overwhelming forces. There was desperate fighting in the streets for several hours. Incendiary gangs assisted the Government forces, and several hundred houses were destroyed by fire. Within about twenty-four hours the Volunteers were dispersed and the revolt was suppressed. Trustwortly figures as to the casualties in this conflict are not obtainable, but a conservative estimate puts the casualties in the neighbourhood of a thousand, while the material damage done was estimated at about $20,000,000. After the affray Sun mulcted the merchants in heavy fines. This did not promote happier relations, and when Sun Yat-sen departed in November to participate in the conferences for the re-establishment of peace and good government in China, it brought a great sense of relief in business circles though little improvement was noticeable in the adminis- tration of Canton under Mr. Hu Han-min down to the end of the year.

Another disgraceful episode of the year was a dastardly attempt to assassinate M. Merlin the Governor-General of Indo-China. The French community were enter- taining His Excellency at a dinner in the Victoria Hotel on the Shameen on the night of June 19th, when an Annamite threw a bomb into the room through the open window. Though the assassin missed his mark, he succeeded in killing five French residents and seriously injuring others. The miscreant himself was drowned in the river while trying to evade capture.

Early in January, 1925, Sun Yat-sen, while still attending the Peace Conference in Peking, was reported to be seriously ill and on March 12th, news of his death was received in Canton. Hostilities commenced between the Kuomintang forces and those of Chen Chiung-ming in February. Under General Chiang Kai-shek who commanded the Russian instructed and officered Whampoa Cadets, remarkable progress was made along the East River and Swatow was finally captured. The troops of Chen's party were utterly demoralized and retreated to the borders of Kiangsi and Fukien. During the absence of the Cantonese armies, however, the Yunnanese and Kwangsi troops under General Yang Hsi-min and Liu Chen-huan returned from the East River front to Canton, where, declaring that the Kuomintang party was introducing Bolshevik principles, they seized the city north of the river, the Honam quarter south of the river remaining in the hands of General Li Fuk-lam, who remained faithful to the Kuomintang cause. Hu Han-min, the Civil Governor, fled to Whampoa. On the return of the army from Swatow a battle took place in which General Chiang Kai- shek's cadets with the help of their Russian leaders crossed the river and signally defeated the Yunnanese and Kwangsi soldiers in the streets of Canton. With their entry into the city it appeared only too evident that Bolshevism had become the policy of the Kuomintang. Especially against the British and Hongkong, which had been believed by the Kuomintang to be sympathetic not only to the Chen Chiung-ming but also to the Yunnanese and Kwangsi parties, was a bitter propaganda directed. The intensity of anti-foreign feeling expressed, combined with atrocities against the defeated Yunnanese actually witnessed by Europeans from the Shameen side of the Defence Creek, caused the greatest alarm among all foreign residents. Following on the incident of the 30th May, at Shanghai where the Municipal Police fired on a crowd mainly composed of students and many were killed and wounded, a mass demonstra- tion was organised in Canton against the 'Imperialistic Policy' of England, America and Japan and a general strike proclaimed, all Chinese leaving Shameen. On the 23rd June a monster procession moved slowly past the barricaded bridges of Shameen, shout- ing threats and defiance at the sailors and inarines who had been landed from British and French gunboats to prevent a threatened entry on to the two Concessions. At the end of the procession several hundred of Chiang Kai-shek's victorious Whampoa Cadets appeared and, to the horror of eyewitnesses, shots suddenly rang out. Instantly pandemonium reigned Thousands of shots were exchanged. A French merchant, M. Pasquier, was killed and several foreigners, among them the Commissioner of Customs, wounded. On the Chinese side of the Creek the casualties under the fire of the French and British sailors were more severe. At least fifty were killed and a hundred wounded. All intercourse between the settlement and city now ceased. The local Government lodged bitter protests with the British and French Consulates-General and set forth five demands which included the rendition to the Kwangtung Govern- ment of the Foreign Concessions on Shameen, the punishment of the naval officers concerned and the dismissal of the British Consul-General. The threats of sections on the Chinese side appeared to warrant the island assuming an attitude of defence, and, with sandbags and barbed wire and with volunteers and Indian troops landed from