1932 - Gen. M.A. Cohen interviewed in Manchester after leaving Hong Kong’s Peninsula Hotel for a 3 month-long trip to the U.S.A., the U.K., and Europe..jpg

New York. Early November 1932. (General Cohen in his own words): On this trip home I’d determined that my own family should have priority over everything else. I was thinking about them all the way. As soon as my American business was tidied up and I knew my sailing date from New York, I cabled to tell them. I landed at Plymouth, and there waiting on the wharf were two of my brothers. It was a typical early winter, West Country day, dismal and drizzling, but there were my own folks to greet me and it made me feel warm all through. We boarded the train for the long journey up to Manchester. When we pulled into London Road Station, there were my father and mother and half a dozen of the family. I kissed mother first, thinking how stooped and frail she’d grown, and just as I did so, one of the “Daily Dispatch” boys took a flashlight picture. ‘Lay off that,’ I shouted and smashed his camera with my walking stick. Looking back it seems a silly thing to have done. But somehow just at that moment I was right back in amongst my own people and this intrusion from an outsider was a damned cheek. The local papers were kind to me and didn’t play the story up at all. Altogether the newspaper boys gave me a big hand this time. The “Manchester Evening News” interviewed me and the “Evening Chronicle”, and the “Jewish Gazette” and the Manchester correspondent of the “People” and lots more. Even the heavyweight “Manchester Guardian” thought my views important. It printed an interview with me in which I said that the British policy of conniving at Japanese aggression in Manchuria had aroused the hostility of the Chinese people. It was all nonsense, I said, to suggest that Japan needed Manchuria for colonization. What Japan wanted in Manchuria was oil. By this time the Great Slump had really hit Lancashire. Factories were closing down everywhere and unemployment figures were leaping up. With the Chinese boycott of Japanese goods, especially textiles, becoming more and more effective, it had become to look as if the Far Eastern market might save the situation when there was no other hope in sight. I’d arrived just at the right time to tell them about it. A lot of businessmen were interested. The Manchester Chamber of Commerce gave me a lunch at the Midland Hotel, with Mr Nathan Laski in the chair. I said my piece and answered endless questions. When I left Manchester I would be loaded down with catalogues and price lists for the supply departments of the Kwangtung Government. I got some orders too, and I’d have got a lot more if (Finance Minister) T.V Soong had been able to float his loan six months later. Once my holiday in Manchester was over, I was on my way to London, Paris and Geneva to finalize my other business. (Extracts from: Commander Charles H. Drage, Two-Gun Cohen, Jonathan Cape, London 1954)

Michael Alderton (essarem) notes: In early February 1933, and following trade missions to Manchester, London and Paris, and a visit to Geneva to meet with the Chinese Government’s representatives attending the international assemblies there, General Cohen returned to the Far East by way of New York and San Francisco; and by mid-April he was back again in Hong Kong’s prestigious Peninsula Hotel.

On his journey back to Hong Kong, General Cohen stopped off at Shanghai where the newspapers announced his March 31 arrival: "Shanghai. Among those who arrived here on the 'President McKinley' were Gen. Morris A. Cohen of the 19th Route Army, returning to Shanghai after a visit to Europe and the United States."

On his arrival at Shanghai, General Cohen was met by Shanghai Municipal Police Special Branch officer, A.G. Tilton, who reported: "Re: Cohen, Morris Abraham - born London. I was sent to meet Cohen on his arrival in Shanghai to disarm him. I took one loaded automatic from him on the Customs Jetty on the Bund. He was not issued with a permit to carry firearms at the time."

See also: 1932 - Brig. Gen. M.A. "Two-Gun" Cohen, a brigade commander in the Chinese 19th Route Army, in New York on a mission for the Chinese government.jpg | Gwulo: Old Hong Kong