893.00/8783: Telegram
The Consul General at Hankow (Lockhart) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 26—11 a.m.]
32 to the Legation April 25, noon. There is a noticeable improvement in the situation here. Posters have been widely distributed directing that foreigners be not interfered with. Demonstrations and parades have practically ceased. Officials and laborers as well are showing a much more reasonable attitude toward foreigners. The substantial increase in the naval forces here, the attitude of Chiang Kai-shek, President of the Hankow Government, the steady growth of unemployment and the almost complete paralysis of business by reason of the stringent silver embargo, have no doubt contributed to this change of feeling. I accompanied the group of leading American businessmen in a 2-hour conference with Eugene Ch’en Saturday afternoon at which time he was to be told pointedly and in emphatic terms the imperative necessity of taking immediate steps to relieve the situation. Being pressed for concrete information as to what his regime proposes to do in this direction he detailed measures adopted within the last few days and it is apparently these that are now easing a situation which could not possibly have continued longer than a few days.
Reliable information from Changchowfu where conditions have been even worse than at Hankow indicates a change for the better. The present improvement may be only temporary and merely a part of some political scheme of the Kuomintang but the general opinion is that the leaders have been driven to the adoption of remedial measures [Page 294] or else run the risk of a complete collapse from pressure within the party or from outside political enemies.
Troop movements up the Peking-Hankow Railway continue.
Legation, Shanghai and Nanking informed.