Republican farmer., 1920-06-04
SAYS JAPANESE PROVOKE CLASH
 IN MANCHURIA
Newspaper Tells of High Handed Policy Adopted
 By Soldiers.

Picking, May 2S-Reports reaching here indicate that the Japanese are carrying things with a high hand in Manchuria now that the other Allied troops are virtually out of the coun- try. The Peking' and Tientsin Times has received from it's cores pondents reports which it presents under the heading Reign of Terror in Manchuria.' It says that at Imam DO, two Russian workmen who made some disparaging remarks about the Japanese Emperor in talking to a Japanese soldier in the Russian rail way hospital were seized by Japanese soldiers and "summarily shot on the spot" At Harbin, the paper says, Japanese sentries stationed on a bridge threw one Russian off the stabbed another in the face with a bayonet when the Russians insisted upon crossing the bridge.
 The Japanese are reported by the newspaper to have taken full posses sion of Hailar and arrested there II Russian workers and handed them over to the representative of General Semenoff and the Times adds that by this time mo doubt they have been
 
 The Japanese are declared to have brought to Hailar and armed 5cO Semenoff troops who are reported to be actively assisting the Japanese and helping to terroriZe the local popula tion. The Times predicts that similar incidents are likely to in crease as the Japanese hold of the Russian Far East becomes more in tense and states that the Japanese al Har is to he ir,or | by 1, ,000 more men,. This reinforce ment is declared by the paper to be | absolutely sufficient to maintain or ! der.''
 The situation along the Chinese l Eastern Railway was characterized by l the Times correspondent as very 1 critical He stated that the Japanese 1 military authorities had decided to ! place their own guards and sentries along the whole stretch of the rail- | way which crosses Upper Man 1 churia, because they were about to l send troop trains and military SUD- 1 plies along that railway and were ] afraid the Russian railway workers who were opposed to Japanese inter l ventlon might try to stop the Japan
 CSC from carrying out their plans. | The Japanese seem bent upon i brewing trouble among the Russia n l | area by giving them a series of pin : ] bricks so as to bring about open , strife which will. give them an excuse i to take determined action even to the i seizing and working of the Chinese | Eastern wrote the correspondent l The correspondent admitted that the Japanese had the right to send | troops over the railway to protect the | frontiers against invasion but that l this did not confer the right to oc- | cupy settlements along the line, or l interfere with the rights of local pop 1 ulations. He declared that the pur- i pose of the Japanese to seize control 1 of the railway called for an imme- | diate protest on the part of the Al | lies.
 1 In Nikolsk, he reported, the rail- | way workers having gone on strike | Japanese soldiers were rounding | them up and forcing them at the
 point of the 5ayonet, to do the work l of laborers
 Since the foregoing situation was | described, information has been | made public in Moscow that Chinese | and Russian military commissioners in | conference at Verkhne-Udinsk, Trans l Baika1ia, have reached an agreemen,
 under which inherent rights of the l Russian Soviet government in the
 Eastern Manchurian railway were | recognized and the Chinese guaran-
 teed to withdraw their troops from
 along the railway lines.' It was
 pointed out that China'S agreement
 that the Russians should retain pos
 session of its road deprived the Jap
 anese of one of their best excuses for
 keeping troops on it.