Chaos

Major themes in the Chinese symphony of anarchy and chaos throughout the week:

P: The Nationalist (Cantonese) advance upon Shanghai (TIME, Jan. 24 et seq.) brought them a great victory early in the week when they captured and looted Hangchow, 113 miles from Shanghai, and put to flight the troops of War Lord Sun Chuan-fang, defender of Shanghai.

P: A previously extraneous force entering the Chinese Civil War, last week was the advance southwestward from Shensi Province into Honan of the "Christian" War Lord Feng Yu-hsiang with an army which has long skulked in Mongolia (TIME, June 14 et seq.).

P:In Honan province the local "Scholar" War Lord Wu Pei-fu was holding back troops of the Peking War Lord Chang Tso-lin which had been despatched to defend Shanghai from the Nationalists by the Peking-Manchuria faction.

P: Two battalions of Punjabi troops arrived at Shanghai from Calcutta, bringing the British infantry forces there up to 6,000, with 2,000 U. S. troops, and 21 foreign battleships also concentrated at Shanghai.

P: Dr. Chu Chao-tsin, Chinese representative to the League of Nations, deposited with the League last week a copy of a note despatched to British Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain, stating that Great Britain has violated Article X of the League Covenant, and the Washington treaties by sending troops to China.

P: British Colonial Secretary L. C. M. S. Amery, called, "the most influential member of the British Cabinet," said last week:

"Massacre and plundering oh a large scale in Shanghai would be the natural consequence of the rout of Sun's armies, except for the prompt action of the British Government in sending troops just in time.

"Because of this, the British community at Shanghai will sleep securely in their beds tonight."

P: The three principal Chinese factions, respectively of Canton,, Peking and Shanghai, all explicitly rejected through their leaders last week the recent proposal of U. S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg that Shanghai be declared a neutral zone.

P: The Canadian Pacific S. S. Empress of Scotland landed 500 world- circling tourists at Shanghai while the Nationalist armies were only 60 miles away. Soon the tourists scuttled back on board, steamed away.

P: Sixty-five thousand Chinese workers at Shanghai began a general strike to celebrate the fall of Hangchow (see above). Strike leaders nailed up placards: "The Nationalist force has been victorious. The power of Marshal Sun Chuan-fang has ended. The time is opportune for the people to assist the movement against the War Lords.

"The foreigners are finished. Foreigners are no good."

P: Dr. V. K. Ting, Mayor of Shanghai, took ship for Japan "to seek medical treatment."

P: To check the general strike at Shanghai, troops loyal to Sun Chuan-fang began to seize and behead strikers picketing in the streets. Excited correspondents variously set the number of strikers decapitated last week at between "46" and "1,113." The effect was to quiet the 50,000 workers, who remained on strike, skulked in their homes.

P: At Hankow, recently evacuated by the British, who abandoned to the Nationalists a $60,000,000 capital investment (TIME, Jan. 17) negotiations continued all week between British representative Owen O'Malley, and the Nationalist Foreign Minister Eugene Chen. An agreement was finally signed between them relating to the British holdings abandoned at Hankow, but the text of this agreement was kept secret.

P: The Chinese Minister at Washington, D. C., Dr. Alfred Sze, declared last week: "Our people will never rest from now on until they have won complete independence of the foreigner."