Jane 17.
The account we published in our issue of June 12 of the address given by Dr. Gordon Thompson, at the annual meeting. of the Medical Auxiliary of the Church Missionary Society in the Central Hall Westminster, on "How the Hangchow Hospital was saved" was worth more than the cursory attention of o veadars, It was an interesting story but it was much more than that, It was a lesson in suceessful diplomacy and wise, Christian, charity. The facts may be ly recalled. In 1925-6 the National army began its advance from Canton on a mountain wave of enthusiasm. The way had been well prepared by a nation wide propaganda. The dawn of a new era had come. As in 1911 the cause of all China's woes had been attributed to the rule of the corrupt Manchu court, so in 1925 the reason for the failure of the revolution was attributed to the wicked militarists and the imperialistic foreign governments, The National movement was to sweep those things out of existence so that China might be free and enter on a period "of unbounded prospe: Foreign governments placed no obstacles in the way.
Early in 1927 the National army approached Hangchow and the British Consul advised his nationals to leave the city. This they did two days after the army had taken possession of the city and two days later a mob rushed into the hospital, did a good deal of damage to the furniture and took possession of the property. When things had quietened down somewhat Dr. Thompson and Dr. Webb-Peploe returned to th? city, they could not enter their own houses, for they were occupied by "the military, and had to spend sixteen months of hard, steady, work before they attained their aim and won the hospital back. To illustrate the kind of work that had to be done we give one example. The Communist headquarters issued many posters denouncing these foreign imperialists and in particular one paper which stated that the Chinese had contributed to the fund for building the hospital and were therefore entitled to take possession of what they had paid for..Dr. Thompson immediately countered this with a similar poster in which he stated that the Chinese contributions amounted to about as many hundreds of dollars as the foreign did in tens of thousands and offered to produce the vouchers to prove his statement. This was very effective and had a deterrent effect on the issues of baseless propaganda. Next came news from the front that showed that the National armies
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.