Harbin, April 20.
Recent incidents at Hailar have greatly excited the population in the railway zone. When it became known among the railway workers at Hailar that the Japanese had placed on the mail train going to Manchuli the eight arrested Russian workers who were the leaders of the last strike, the rail- dul wayman again went on strike and refused to furnish an engine for the train. In the evening, seeing that it was impossible to settle with the strikers, the Japanese decided to take the arrested men from the train back to the Japanese barracks and for this purpose brought a number of their troops on to the station platform.
Suots 1n THE Darx-
Whilst the men were being conveyed through a double line of Japanese soldiers, someone among the crowd of onlookers threw a hand grenade among them, wounding some four of the Japanese. In the confusion the arrested men made good their escape, but not before @ Japanese bomb had been hurled at them killing one of their number and wounding two others slightly. It is said that the Japanese also opened fire both with rifles and machine-guns and, in the dark, wounded several - onlookers including two women, besides killing a Czech.
The Japanese fire was returned by the Chinese troops who were also at the station. The Japanese, seeing themselves outnumbered, lurried back to their barracks and in their retreat suffered numerous casualties. stated to be between 20 and 30, for no official figures are available, the Chinese also having a dozen or more wounded.
The incident was immediately reported to the Japanese Consul andj Czech diplomatic representative at} Manchuli, and news was received to the effect that the latter would leave immediately for Hailar to investigate the matter.
The next day all was quiet, pending the arrival of these officials. The workers returned to their duties, the trains left as usual and three Czech echelons out of the five were moved eastwards. On this day a Japanese echelon arrived from the west to reinforce the local garrison.
That. night the! Japanese started making trenches and embankments on the hills overlooking the town and brought up their artillery to places commanding the station and railway track. From Manchuli arrived the next morning another Japanese echelon and an armoured train which remained some few versts from the station.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.