The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1932. A NEW STATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 219, 15 September 1932, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1932. A NEW STATE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Japanese rejoicings over the recognition by Tokyo of the new State of Manchukuo, the former Manchuria, seem hardly consistent ■with the theory so persistently put forward by leading statesmen in Japan that the formation of this State was due to the spontaneous wish of its inhabitants. The status of Manchukuo has lately been brought into question by the action of its authorities in seizing the Manchurian Customs. By what right have they done this? Is Manchukuo an independent State, or is it merely Manchuria plus Japan ? Japan has very wisely dissociated herself from Manchukuo in this matter of the Customs, and has promised to do her best to mediate between Nanking and the new State. The British Ambassador in Tokyo has pro- j tested against the seizure of the Manchurian Customs. These dues are a part of the security for the service of the Chinese foreign debt, and supply about 15 per cent of the total Customs revenue of China. The foreign bondholders, particularly Great Britain, France and, to a less extent, the United States, are therefore particularly interested in this matter. The issue is closely tied up with the underlying question of recognition of the new State.

Japan has taken this step of according recognition to Manchukuo before the publication by the League of Nations of the Lytton Report. This looks like a determination to ignore the League. Formerly Japan took the attitude that consideration of the Manchurian dispute should be postponed till the Lytton Commission had reported; now she apparently takes the position that the League is not competent to discuss the dispute, and that the creation and policy of the new State is purely a matter for the inhabitants themselves. The Japanese deny that Manchuria is an integral part of China. They claim to have created the district by establishing conditions of order, security, progress and development unknown to any part of China proper within the Wall. One generation ago, they say, the whole region was a lonely wilderness. The Chinese, on the other hand, assert that Manchuria was occuped by Chinese in 1000 •B.C. or thereabouts. The case for Japan really rests on the fact that she has vast interests in Manchuria, acquired by agreement when it was very sparsely settled, and that of late years there has been no real government in the country, which has been overrun by lawless bands of soldiery. Will Japan, having ended this state of anarchy, submit to the League's decision in the future government of the territory? If the Lytton Commission finds that the formation of the Manchukuo State was not spontaneous, Avill Japan withdraw her recognition ? The general opinion is that it was not spontaneous, and that there was not enough cohesion in Manchuria to take such a step. America asserts that Japan has violated the Nine Power Treaty, the first article of which pledges its signatories "to respect the sovereignty, the independence and the territorial and administrative integrity of China." The Powers interested will not willingly see the new State a mere shield behind which Japan will control the affairs of the country, and they cannot ignore China's appeal to the League and to Treaty rights. The situation is disturbing, to say the least of it.