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XII-INCENDIARISM.
25. Two serious fires, both of which appear to have been deliberately started, occurred in Dairen during the year. The first broke out during the afternoon of Sunday the 10th April, on the premises of the Manchuria Oil Company's refinery at Kanseishi and was not extinguished until noon on the following day. The local authorities maintained complete secrecy, but the newspapers were permitted to make the incredible statement that no employees of the company had been on the premises when the blaze started. Thereafter there was complete silence on the subject, but His Majesty's Consul at Chefoo reported at a later date that the Chinese manager for a British shipping firm at Chefoo had been shot by the Japanese military authorities for alleged complicity in the affair.
26. The second fire broke out in four warehouses simultaneously, in the Dairen wharf area on the morning of Sunday the 5th June, and completely destroyed the buildings and their contents to an estimated value of 20 million yen. About 450 persons, mostly Chinese, who were in the neighbourhood at the time were rounded up and placed in a barbed wire enclosure for examination, but the press has never mentioned the subject, and the result of the police investigation has not been revealed. Two of the warehouses are said to have been filled with military stores.
XIII-POLICE.
27. On the night of the 12th March Mr. J. C. Lumgair, a British employee of the Rising Sun Petroleum Company, while driving home in his car, had the misfortune to run down a Japanese pedestrian and his wife, the latter expiring shortly afterwards. Mr. Lumgair was immediately arrested and remained in custody until the 26th March under most outrageous conditions. He was obliged to wear Chinese prison garb, was kept in a cell with Chinese prisoners and was roped and handcuffed every time he was taken before the public procurator for examination. Mr. Consul Morland was permitted to see him on the 13th March and on three later occasions, but only on condition that he did not discuss the case with the prisoner, and his energetic representations for Mr. Lumgair's release on bail and for the improvement of conditions during his detention were ignored. Finally, after the matter had been raised in Tokyo by His Majesty's Embassy, Mr. Lumgair was granted bail. The trial commenced on the 19th April and was not concluded until the 29th June, when Mr. Lumgair was sentenced to pay a fine of 500 yen. He had previously paid a solatium of 5,000 yen to the victim's husband.
28. On the 23rd June during the visit of H.I.H. Princess Nashimoto (of which no official intimation had been received) a minor police official decided that the windows of His Majesty's Consulate were not closed in a properly respectful manner, and accordingly entered the building and created à disturbance. At the same time the pro-consul was refused access to the premises, and in the course of the day the consulate underwent other offensive attentions at the hands of police officials. A written protest was immediately lodged with the Governor, but went without acknowledgment for a month: when the reply finally came it contained no expression of regret, but merely stated that the consulate windows should be closed on such Imperial occasions and that access to the premises could not be allowed even to members of the staff. The only concession made was an undertaking to give His Majesty's Consul in future prior notice of Imperial visits. In the meantime the Japanese writer had been subjected to a severe grilling by police officials, who accused him of entertaining disrespectful feelings towards the Imperial Family, and of being responsible for the whole incident The matter through failure to give His Majesty's Consul
proper advice." was in due course brought to the attention of the Japanese Foreign Office by His Majesty's Embassy at Tokyo.
XIV. HEALTH AND EPIDEMICS.
29. There has been no serious outbreak of epidemic disease in the Territory during 1938. Energetic action by the quarantine officers in the early summer was successful in preventing the transmission of smallpox and cholera from Shanghai and Tientsin.
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