Mr. Gareth Jones whose savage murder roused the
indignation of the British community out East, had collected material for
what promised to be one of the best book ever written on the Pacific. The
writer was privileged hear Mr. Jones read extracts from his notes, and
very startling would his revelations have been, with all the interest of
Percy Fleming’s book, backed by a far deeper knowledge of political
affairs.
Mr. Gareth Jones was a man of really charming
personality, and the gift of infectious good spirits and happiness of
disposition. He had an amazingly clever hand with children, and could
improvise fairy tales of a kind that held the grown ups equally enthralled
with their fancy and wit. In his last adventure he must have taken such
interest in his captors and their ways, recognising fully that it was
"all in the way of business," and have sought to preserve
genuinely friendly relations. He would be the first to see their point of
view. Some of us will find it hard to believe that it was just a crime
either of callousness or of sudden panic. That is not quite the way of
Chinese brigands. Other captives have been held for months and then
released safe and sound, after many threats and perils. But often with no
great personal feeling against their captors.
THE HEART OF THINGS.
POLITICS AND THE MURDER OF A Journalist.
By R. T. BARRETT.
August 25th 1935
The callous murder of Mr. Gareth Jones sent a thrill of
horror and indignation through the British community out East. A good many
of US in Hong Kong heard Mr. Jones speak briefly and modesty, of
his work with Mr. Lloyd George, and most of us recognised in him
one of the line of gallant English adventurers, who take their lives in
their hands, and go out into the unknown and troubled places of the earth.
Long ago they were patriotic freebooters like Drake,
then they were explorers like Thomas Cook, than Missionaries like
Livingtone.
To-day
there the news seekers—Percy Fleming is just
such another—the aviators and the camera men who go unarmed to study
tigers and headsmen in the interests of science.
To
those who read closely the negotiations followed
Mr. Jones’s capture, a sorry and sordid tale was revealed, without one
single relieving feature on any side. Very early it became apparent that
this young Englishman had been caught in the swirl of troubled
waters, and his chances of emerging alive
If there had been the least honesty generosity or
goodwill in any quarter concerned, his release would have been art easy
matter. Supposing for the moment that Mr. Gareth Jones was captured
by genuine brigands of that the evidence is not clear either way—what
the brigands wanted was money and arms. The trouble with dealing with
black mailers is always that when you fulfil your part of the bargain they
cheat, leaving you where you are and repeating the same demands with
~increased threats, but Chinese brigands generally have a rough honesty,
and the probability is that if the ransom had been paid then the captive
would have been released.
There
were two curious things about the incident. The
first was the release of Dr. Mueller. 1t is very seldom that the
captive is so re1eased. Of course the brigands, having their Manchester
Guardian and other works of reference, including files of Hong Kong
papers, may have known that in Mr. Jones they had a well connected young
man for whose safety every effort would be made, while Dr. Mueller was a
much less valuable captive. Somehow, one doubts this astonishing
prescience in simple minded brigands of the demilitarized zone.
The second curious incident was the readiness of the
Chahar government to find the ransom any ransom apparently up to $100,000.
despite the fact that they had warned Mr. Jones that they would not be
responsible for his safety. And yet that same government, while the
negotiations were in progress, ~ truculently informing Nanking that its
Treasury empty, and nothing could be sent to the Central Government of
China. A clear hint there of several things, which need not be labored.
All who follow affairs in the North can read quite clearly.
Then there is the curiously vague and muddled story of
a Chahar official being actually sent.
The generous General Chu
Teh-Chun , Chairman of the
Chahar government is supposed to have actually sent an emissary to the
bandits, with an installment of $100,000. Dr.Mueller reports, however,
that the bandits never received the money.
It is very curious, too, that no efforts to get the
ransom were made from the British side.’~ It is utterly unreasonable to
suppose that his father would not have been ready to help, that Mr. Lloyd
George, who evidently had a deep affection for him, and is one of the most
generous of men, would not have helped, and even the old Foreign Office
itself would have done something more than send an assistant attaché to
"do what he could. There is something strange here, for normally
kidapping is impelled by one reason only, namely money, and in China the
game is quite systematised and ought to have been played without any
difficulty. It is easy to theorise, all may have been honest and above
board, but it has not got that appearance.
Whether that is so or not, it is quite certain that
contact with Mr. Jones was lost, that the negotiations were bungled, that
he was taken over the Jehol border and passed on to another band. These
bandits proceeded to make impossible demands and then on being attacked
turned on him.
Renter gives a final "explanation of the
crime". The district magistrate who was conducting the negotiations
in their final stage, did not inform his next door colleague of what was
going on. All that that conscientious worthy knew was that the brigands
were entering his territory, so, very dutifully, he sent his troops to
attack them. This made the honest brigands doubt the sincerity of the
negotiations, so they took the straightforward course of murdering this
young man who was proving more of a liability than an asset.
What else could one expect them to
do
Reuter of course knows that this is all
arrant nonsense as any of us, that a Chinese official keeps his
post by knowing exactly what is happening all round him, and playing the
correct moves on the complicated chessboard of Chinese political intrigue.
A false move, a lack of knowledge and he, and his family will very soon be
chucked out of the lucrative gold mine called public office. In other
words Reuter is saying that Mr. Jones was a victim of oriental intrigue.
It is easy to see that there is more to the incident
than the petty avarice of brigands, and the possible peculation of ransom
money.
Already the Chinese are accusing the Manchukuo
authorities of deliberately obstructing the negotiations.
It is quite obvious that efforts were made to create
another international incident.
It is the object of the Chinese to show that the
demilitarised zone is a nest of brigandage in which, owing to Japanese
interference it is impossible to preserve any sort of security. They wish
also to show that in Manchukuo the same state of affairs exists, and the
so called efficiency and beneficence of Japanese government are a fraud
and a lie and conditions where they govern are worse than in China. What
better demonstration than the capture and murder of this young Englishman,
and all that went between.
Nor can the Japanese have been blind to the probable
reactions between England and China. Here on the very eve of the arrival
of the Leith Ross Mission is an incident that might rouse British
resentment, and contribute that personal factor which every now and then
cuts right across the dehumanised interplay of finance and commerce.
A firm will suddenly drop negotiations with people that
have committed a murder, and take an alternative offer. Who knows, a real
chance of putting a spoke in the British wheel.
Thus we have Colonel Tan Takahashi, the suave attaché,
so prominent in the recent Northern crisis— the very man who delivered
an ultimatum expiring at midnight, which was to have sealed the fate of
Peiping — offering his services.
It may all have been genuine, the efforts of the
Charhar Government and the good offices of the Japanese, but intrigue is
so much part and parcel of the East that no one believes that it was
suddenly suspended, and replaced by clear wells of sincerity.
Rival Methods
What instruction there is in this incident in the rival
methods of Britain and China. Japan siezed Manchuria because a Japanese
staff officer travelling in the interior disappeared and was murdered.
Peiping and Tientsin were almost taken because a party of Japanese
officials were arrested and detained a few hours by some minor official at
Kalgan. The day before the news of the murder of Mr. Jones was released, a
single shot was fired at a junk with Japanese notables on board, and
flying the Japanese flag.
An incident was threatened, but as it happened none was
needed at the time. A few weeks ago, a silly article in a Chinese paper at
Shanghai precipitated another crisis; then a gunman’s crime aroused
another!
England has tried the "gunboat policy", and
has decided that it has been found wanting.
At the time of writing there is talk of a protest at
the murder of Mr. Jones. If one is presented it will be very mild, and
apologetic. We shall make all the capital we can out of our "reason
and moderation," in a time of great difficulty to Nanking.
Sir Frederick Leith Ross. is on the way. Chinese
opinion must be placated. Because a rash young man is killed by brigands
that is no reason why a contract for machinery, or warships, or railway
equipment should go elsewhere. Commercial interests are involved, and that
means not only individual profits and directors fees, but work and wages
for British labour.
A nice pass England has reached when the livelihood of
decent Britons depends upon whether British statesmen can do the correct
grovel and spread the correct palm oil among Chinese "war lords"
and politicians, whose corruption and selfishness arc a bye-word among
their own people. A nice pass when we have to beg our bread from such
folk.
In the eighteenth century Lord Macartney seeking to
further trade between great Britain and China refused to kow-tow to the
magnificent Emperor Kien Lung. In consequence his mission did not do all
that had been hoped.
England, however, got along quite well despite the fact
that he sacrificed pecuniary advantage to prestige.
We can imagine the instructions had he been sent out on
his mission to-day. "Kow-tow. Of course kow-tow. You’ll damn well
eat the dirt at the Emperor’s feet, and clean his boots with your
tongue, or stand on your head, or do anything else he talk you, if you can
get in return the concessions we want. You can get on with it, or get
out". Thus would speak that tightfisted old god Avarice, whom we
worship so blindly—that old god who steals the living wage from
British workmen with one hand, and fosters every hit of dirty business out
East with the other. If business between England and China were clean
there would be no political trouble.
It would pity in the end if all shady business were
turned down. Firms who have acted on that principle do well. Now and then
they lose a hit here and there, but in the end the clients worth having
come back to them. This was to a large extent the old, Victorian way,
though no one claims it was 100per cent clean, but today, we all know the
epithet which business has attracted to itself in its scrounging this way
and that.
The life of a gallant young Englishman, who had already
dared to expose the hell-black villainy of the Russian government in
concealing a famine, and dooming millions to death, rather than cease
export of grain, and call for foreign aid, was nothing to "commercial
interests at Home." He was a young fool who had run his head into the
noose, just as a generation ago ‘Chinese’ Gordon was an old fool and
further back still, Clive a disturber of the Peace, and of nabob profits.
But the nasty, flabby, old gentlemen, who, for the sake
of their profits, have made such havoc if the world that statesmen must
perforce seek any kind of business, no matter how dirty, in order to keep
their people in work will one day be destroyed, and in England it is young
men of the type of Gareth Jones, who will accomplish the task. He was
pursuing that task out East, as he had pursued it in Russia, and he was
one of those who knew too much.
The story of one hand of brigands handing the captive
over to another group is yet another curious feature. This second group is
promptly extirpated except for one wounded man, who produces just the
story needed to give verisimilitude to this bald and unconvincing
narrative.
Life is cheap out cast, and so are lies, and all that
matters arc money and face. However, even if we have to leave it at
Nanking’s bland assurances, at least let it be known that we know pretty
well what happened.
Since this was written Dr. Mueller has clinched our
contention. No warning was given on the contrary a permit was issue , and
a route mapped out. No doubt what Dr Mueller says will be either denied or
disregarded, but once more it has been said, "It is expedient, but
the official pronouncement on the consequences are not "believed
to this day’.
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