Government's Official Account of Fight with Merchant Volunteers, The "Hongkong Daily Press" publishes -the following from the: Pross Bureau of Canto Canton, October 19. view of -the campaign of misrepresentation and slander Which is being conducted in the Press Yegarding the affair of the Merchant Volunteers and the fighting which took place in Canton on the 16th] Instant, the Government has deemed it necessary to issue the following statement for public information.
C. Defianee Not Defence It cannot be over-emphasized that the eonfiiet which the Volunteers chose to enter into with the Govern ment was not one for the possession fof the arms shipped from Belgium by the steamer Hav but for the overthrow of the Government, not tone for self-defence but for aggres-Son, The Government bad always viewed with sympathy. and_ encouragement the formation of the M.V.C, as evidenced by the fact that' Dr, Sun himself presented Colours to it last June at an official review, When the steamer Hav arrived at Canton with its shipment of arms, Chan Lim-pak. the then Commandant of the Corps, in his efforts to get the arms passed by the Government, pursued such a course of deception and misrepresentation that the suspicions of the: Authorities were aroused. A wide-Spread campaign to advertise Chan Lim-pak and his pinch-beck Fascisti in the foreign Press in Hongkong and the Treaty Ports, and even in America, and the fact that Chan, in disobedience to the orders of the. Government, sought to become the Commandant not merely of the Mevehant Volunteer Corps of Cane ton city, but also of the Volunteers: of the entire province of Kuangtung, confirmed the opinion that Chan was playing for higher game,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.