The Canton Incident of June 23rd, The Truth/APPENDIX E.
Extract from Sir James Jamieson's dispatch to H. M. Charge D'Affaires, Peking, June 25th, 1925.
At 11 a.m. two motor-cars passed along the Shakee Street on the other side of the canal, and distributed leaflets signed by the cadets of the military school of the Kwangtung army, calling upon all and sundry to eject the foreigner. At about 2.30 p.m. the procession was at the end of the Shakee Street, which commences at the gate of the French bridge, and proceeded along the north bank of the canal. The only persons in the vicinity of our bridge were myself, the British Senior Naval Officer, the Superintendent of Shameen Police, one or two Naval Officers, a member of my staff and some unarmed Chinese Police, who, being Hakkas, had not walked out with the rest of the Chinese on the island on the 21st. (The Customs employees left on the 23rd and the Post Office employees on the 24th.) Unarmed Chinese Police lined the road on the other side at intervals of about 50 yards, and a company of armed soldiers took up positions under the verandahs of the Chinese shops in the neighbourhood of the bridge. Three-quarters of the procession, consisting of labour, agricultural and other unions, marched along in an orderly manner with flags and banners, and I was actually on the point of leaving to send a telegram to say that had passed off peacefully when the S.N.O. remarked all to me that perhaps it would be as well to wait until the students came along. In the course of a few minutes bodies of male and female students came in sight, and on crossing the invisible line separating the British from the French Concession, started to raise what I assumed to be college yells, and in so far as I could understand calling for cheers for the Kuo-min-Tang. In other respects they did not differ from those preceding them.
Immediately following on was a body of armed military cadets dressed in dark bluish-grey uniforms, who halted at a point some fifty yards east of the bridgehead. I had in the meantime noticed a man get on a box at the mouth of Shoe Lane, which debouches on the canal side, and wave a fan, and at the same time an excited person waving a flag shouted derision at our party.
Some members of the procession fell out, as I thought, to listen to what was being said, when suddenly a rifle shot was heard, and the procession broke up in disorder, rushing for shelter. Half a minute afterwards a volley was fired on to Shameen, and it was only when I found bullets spattering all round me that I realized that an attack was contemplated, and beat a hasty retreat, as did those with me. Finding the S.N.O. and myself under fire, which was likewise affecting them, one of our posts in a building to the west of the bridge returned the fire, which was stopped on Commander Maxwell Scott reaching it. As, however, firing at the island still continued, the other posts opened fire likewise, as did the French posts. This is all I personally witnessed.
(Sd.) J. W. JAMIESON.