A telegram was received yesterday stating that nine members of the Church Missionary Societs had been captured by bandits, miles north of Chengtu, capital of Szechuan.
The party include: Bishop anil Mrs. Mowll and (the telegram adds) "at least three women and children," but no other names are given. relatives, who live in Russia, since 1917. She applied to the Russian authorities, through the Russian Consulate officials in London, the necessary visa to be granted. After waiting for over five weeks, she received a reply that a visa was refused. My wife and I will be returning to Ghina at the end of August, so it means that my wife will have to return to China without being allowed the privilege of see-her relatives and it may be ist seven years before she will be in a position to renew her request to the Russian government for the privilege above mentioned. The above circumstances were explained at the time of application.
Now, I would like ta point out' that the above fact goes to prove that things in Russia are not as they should be, nor as the labour members who visited that country would like the working men of this country to believe. If it were #0, don't you think the Russian government would be only too pleased to allow my wife—a Russian woman married to an Englishman—to go and see her relatives and then come back to England and advertise what she experienced? I think the average man in the streets of England can see as far through a brick wall as the average Bolshevist.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.