Chungking, Feb, 24, Mr. Laughlin Currie and Mr, Emile members of the United States economic mission to. China, are Jscheduled to leave Chungking by alr February 2 en route to Washine-
Aged Missionary May Be Prisoner Chungking, Feb. 19.
First information of the whereabouts of Mr. G. W. Hunter, British missionary of the China Inland Mis slon in Urumehi, capital of Sinkiang Province, who has been missing for nearly one year and a half, was brought to Chungking today by (we brothers, John and Peter Stefaniakc, who claim'Ameriean citizenship and who were released several months ago afler nearly two years' Imprisonment in Urumehi, British quarters here state that [about two years ago all British nation= als in Sinkiang. left the province excepting Mr. Hunter, 70-year-old mis: sionary, who has lived In. Sinkiang for over 30 years, The last message received from him by the British Consul-General at Kashgar was about 'a year and a half ago. after' which news has been forthcoming from the missing. missionary.
Alli efforts by the Consul-General to discover the whereabouts of Mr, Hunter have been unavailing, Fol-Jewing the receipt of fresh information upon the arrival of the Stefaniaks, the British Embassy has requested' the Chinese Foreign Office to contact the Chinese authorities at Urumehl, but far no reply has been -received, The British Consul-General at. Kas gar has also tried to contact Urumehi Dut also without result.
According to the story told by the Stefaniak brothers, they escaped from Soviet Central Asia across the border into, Sinkiang, where they worked as mechanics at @-bus station in a border town west of Urumchi. It is stated that Mr. Hunter often' came to see them, After their arrest and removal prison in Urumchi, they one day overheard the conversation of a Chinese in a cell next to theirs to the effect that an old English missionary had also been arrested "and imprisoned, The Stefaniaks believed that the English missionary mentioned must be Mr. "Hunter, a9 he was the only English "missionary remaining Sinkiang at the time, The Stefanisk brothers went from the United States to Soviet Russia across the Bering Straits, were taken by the Soviet authorities first to Viadivostock, and then by train 0 Soviet Central Asia, Dissatisfied with working condttions there, the two brothers escaped into Sinkiang. Learning of their fate in Urumehi, the United States Consul General at' Calcutta contacted the American Embassy here, which re-Quested the Foreign Anice in Chung Yang to effect their release, 'The brothers were taken from Urumehi and handed over to a camel caravan several months ago, which rally arrived of the Kansu' bord where they were escorted to Chung king via Lanchow and Sian, The American Embassy here is at present trying to establish their JSmerican citizenship. They claim that several Germans were also imprisoned together with them in Urumeht, These Germans were Communists who had entered Soviet Russia but later eseaped into Sinieiang—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.