Peiping, Sept. 7.
The situation in Peiping resembles in many respects that at Mukden in September 1931, and quite specially in the sudden growth of banditry. The country round Peiping which was formerly the one and only part of China that always had been free from bandits, even in the worst days of the civil wars, is now in a serious state of anarchy, with bands of freebooters, of every political colouring and aim, roaming about the countryside.
These bands range from the followers of the ill-famed Liu Kuei-tang who, if not perhaps acting under the direct orders of the Japanese, seem, at any rate, to be on perfectly friendly terms with them, to so-called "Patriotic Bands"—similar to the "volunteers" in Manchoukuo,—whose professed aim is to carry on guerilla warfare against the Japanese, though they are not above doing a little looting and kidnapping by the wa; The Japanese invasion is, however, Girectly responsible for this sudden outbreak of banditry. Many of the bands consist of disbanded Chinese soldiery or Paoantui, while the commandeering of labour, transport and their stocks of grain has caused considerable unrest among the peasantry, But the main cause is undoubtedly due to the complete disarming of the country police and gendarmerie. \To this step the Japanese were led by their disastrous experience with the Paoantui of East Hopei and the mas-sacro at Tungchow.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.