<<dancer ... the way those Chinese folks won that skirmish>>
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Monday, Jan. 17, 1927
CHINA: Mouth of Han'
Chinese outnumber foreigners in China more than a thousand to one.* Yet in China the yellow men have hewn the white man's wood, drawn his water and emptied out his slops. Only recently have Chinese begun collectively to realize that they need do these chores only as long as they wish. The Chinese Nationalist movement has surged up from Canton across half China (TIME, Dec. 13); and last week the Chinaman's reluctance to go on emptying out slops indefinitely crystallized in a grave incident at Hankow,± "Chicago of China."
Bluff and Bruises. Hankow or "Mouth of Han," takes its name from the great river Han which flows into the greater Yangtze. The city lies at the confluence, with Wuchang, the new Nationalist Capital, just across the Yangtze. Daily for months the Nationalist Government has kept its agents busy telling the Chinese at Hankow the axiomatic truth that if they would all rise against the foreigners, the foreigners would have to sail away, leaving $60,000,000 worth of property behind. Last week this new and surprising thought flared up in a chattering mob of Chinamen who had believed since birth that it was better to empty slops than .hear the white man's cannon.
The mob advanced toward the British quarter. A year and a half ago a similar mob was fired on and dispersed for doing the same at Shanghai (TIME, June 15, 1925 et seq.). But a year is a year. Then the Canton National- ists were impotent. Today they hold half China. Therefore the British marines who stood with fixed bayonets to guard the British quarter received the command: "Under no circumstances fire."
The mob advanced, gibbering, flinging stones. The marines used their rifle butts as clubs, cracked a few crowns, but gently. For four hours the game of bluff and bruises continued. Once 20 coolies, armed only with sticks, bore a British marine to the ground, tore his rifle from him, plunged the bayonet into his heart. Still no shot was fired. Then, suddenly, a troop of Chinese soldiers from the Nationalist stronghold across the river arrived and dispersed the mob with a few shots. The commander blandly explained to the British that he had been delayed. No fool, the British Consul knew that he lied. The riot was a Nationalist warning.
Jack Down. Two days later a larger mob stormed the barricades of the British concession, tore them down in many places, ventured onto the Bund, screaming: "Down with British Imperialism! Kill the Britishmen!"
This time bluff and bruises availed nothing. Too many Chinamen were pouring over the barricades. Lest the mere presence of the marines provoke bloodshed they were withdrawn to British warships in the harbor. Lest the Union Jack incite to violence the British Consul hauled it down. .
A page of history turned. The gunboats could have raked Hankow, the marines could have shot down the mob—but an idea spiked the guns. John Chinaman, slop emptier, had bluffed the white man.
Evacuation. All British women and children in Hankow were rushed aboard warships in the harbor, and with them went 50 U. S women and children. The 150 Britons who were left slept together that night in a warehouse.
Yet the Chinese are a peaceful people, and still afraid of guns. They harmed no hair of a foreign head, but 100 coolies flung themselves upon the granite British war memorial, hurled it to the ground by main force. That was senseless, but typical of China, vastly symbolic.
Mr. Chen. Of course there came, unavoidably delayed," the suave Eugene Chen, Foreign Minister of the Nationalist Government. He sought the British Consul and apologized abjectly." He could not understand how the people had got so out of hand. ... But vox populi vox De', or rather "When the Han is at flood he is a fool who tries to stem it with the paddle of his sampan." . . .
With this logical metaphor in mind a shaky truce was patched up: If the British marines would stay on their ships, Chen would keep the mob out of the British concession as long as he could.
It was Hobson's choice. The British Consul agreed to let matters drift. But the British men of Hankow slept together each night in a warehouse, carried their own slops.
Poster. When the refugees from Hankow reached Shanghai they brought a sample of the poster propaganda used by the Nationalist to rouse John Chinaman against the British. The poster, like a U. S. "funnypaper" shows a series of boxed scenes. First a clean-limbed Russia extends the hand of friendships to young China. Then bloated John Bull plants his boots upon two Chinese necks. The two John Chinamen rise suddenly, toppling John Bull—for all the world like the Katzenjammer Kids upsetting the Captain. At last John Bull is bayonetted amid spurting gore by John Chinaman.
Developments. The U. S. Minister to China, John Van Antwerp MacMurray, was recalled to Washington last week by Secretary Kellogg, who, in five weeks' time, will have the benefit of a handshake with Mr. MacMurray and his personal advice. To fill in the interval, Vice Admiral Williams was despatched from Manila with five destroyers "to investigate the situation at Shanghai," the port to wliich the refugees sailed from Hankow last week, now in danger of being captured by the Nationalists. From various British naval bases four additional warships were despatched to China last week. The hour was never more grave for foreigners in China.
*With 400 million natives in the 18 provinces in China proper, as against 320 thousand foreigners
±tNot to be confused with the British created island-colony of Hongkong, far to the South. Hankow is a Chinese city of some 1,600,000 inhabitants, with U. S., British, French, German and Russian quarters normally populated by some 1,000 foreigners.
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