Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1931. JAPAN IN MANCHURIA

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 138, 8 December 1931, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1931. JAPAN IN MANCHURIA

In the sub-title to his article in the November number of the "Contemporary Review," Mr. W. L. Smyser describes Manchuria as "The AlsaceLorraine of Further Asia," and intended, as it is, to indicate the explosive character of the Manchurian problem the comparison is apt enough. But the contrast to AlsaceLorraine in point of size and resources serves equally well to illustrate the gravity of the problem. Manchuria is about 60 times the size of Alsace-Lorraine and nearly twice the size of France, and its coal, iron, and other minerals, its immense reserves of timber, and the fertility of its huge prairies combine with the divisions and uncertainties of its Government to make it one of the most tempting of prizes in a crowded and impoverished world. In another comparison Mr. Smyser does full justice to the scale of the problem.

Manchuria,: is as large as Egypt, he says, with:agricultural possibilities as vast, although tempered, of course, by its climate. To'find a parallel for Mau; churian rigours arid Manchurian. promise, Manchuria must be moved round tijßjmaip between its latitudes until it cpmes.to rest with its southern extremity touching the Mississippi just abqye Saint Louis and its northern .reaching Hudson Bay. It would nere blot out not only the largest of the Great Lakes, but also Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and most of Ontario and Manitoba. 200,000 square miles of Manchurian country is neither mountain nor desert, but rich rolling land like the wheat districts of Canada. Northern Manchuria is farm land and forest, Southern Man-chui-ia. is a land of millet maize, kaoliang, and legumes, interspersed with small mills and busy growing mines.

With Japan in occupation of the terminal port of the South Manchurian Railway and a considerable hinterland, with Soviet Russia in occupation in the north, and with all sorts of Japanese and Russian railway interests, financial interests, and spheres of influence in intervening territory, the position of Manchuria would be full of difficulty even under a tolerably efficient Chinese Government. But when the incapacity I of that Government is such that its authority is, openly defied by millions of its own people, and civil war, looting, and famine have for years been endemic among them, to expect it to exercise an effective jurisdiction over this "Alsace-Lorraine of the Far East" would be absurd. Whether with or without the instigation or connivance of the local authorities, the Japanese in Manchuria have certainly had to submit to intolerable insult and outrage and lawless violence; and, sometimes in defiance of orders from Tokio and sometimes in pursuance of them, the Japanese troops have illegally retaliated. Referring to one of these incidents, in which they had undoubtedly exceeded these orders, Mr. Stephen Gwynn writes as follows in the November "Fortnightly Review":— The provocation they received—the murder of an officer proceeding under Chinese protection, the partial destruction of a vital railway which they own -Hjame from troops or persons out of the control "of China. "What exactly was Japan to dot Her neighbouring Power was a member of the League, very prompt to claim all the rights of membership, but in no .way prompt to discharge; the duties of ' a civilised State. All this'should be remembered, because the public instinct is to blame Japan, and technically China has put itself in the right by a declaration of willingness to. submit to the Leaguo's arbitration.

This natural tendency to blame Japan, of which Mr. Gwynn testifies, and which his candid statement of her difficulties does not prevent him from sharing, makes it the more imperative to grasp her point of view, and an excellent opportunity is provided by another of the November magazines. The "Nineteenth Century" contains an article on "Manchuria Again" by Mr. K. K. Kawakami, the Washington correspondent of the Tokio "Hochi Shimbun," which* may be commended alike for its array of facts and figures, the candour of its tone, and its excellent English. Two points may be mentioned at the outset as particularly calculated to appeal to the British reader. The first is perhaps of more interest than importance. One of the most violent springs of. Chinese Nationalism is, as everybody knows, the hatred of foreigners, but one foreign nation at a time seems to be enough to include in its slogan. "Down with the British" was the cry in 1925-27, and it worked very well, but about two years later, when the

conciliatory Baron Shidehara took charge of the Foreign Office for the second time, a double change had taken place.

The anti-foreign agitation,. says Mr. Kawakami, which had formerly been directed largely against the British iv the Yangtse Valley and then against tho Soviet in North Manchuria, was now directed against the Japanese in South Manchuria. The so-called Foreign Policy Association, organised two years ago with the official support of Nanking and Mukden, has been spreading virulent anti-Japanese propaganda in South Manchuria. ... Its relation to the Nanking and Mukden Governments is much Jike the relation of tiie Third International to the Soviet Government. If Japan protests t-> the Chinese Government against the inflammatory agitation of the Foreign Policy Association, the reply is that tho Association is a private organisation over which the authorities have no control.

We surely cannot blame the Japanese for refusing to surrender to the same hysterical mob violence which turned the British out of Hankow.

Another of Britain's difficulties during the period in question is exactly illustrated in one of Japan's fundamental problems. Chinese Nationalism regards the presence of Russian and Japanese guards on the Manchurian railways as an insult to China. After the Bolshevik revolution the Russian Government lost the right to appoint its own guards along the Chinese Eastern Railway, and has since negotiated in vain to get it back. Appreciating the disastrous effects of this change upon the traffic, Japan has stuck to her treaty rights and refused to allow the substitution of Chinese soldiers for Japanese guards. '

■Japan's right to place guards along the lines of the South Manchuria Railway, says Mr. Kawakami, is based upon the 1905 Portsmouth Treaty with Russia, as well as upon the 1905 Peldn Agreement with China, which entitles her to maintain her own railway guards until "China shall have become herself capable of affording full protection of the lives and property of foreigners."

. . . . The Washington Conferonce of 1921-22 adopted a resolution permitting the continued stay of forr eign troops in China who were stationed there by treaty.- Japan, of course, does not mean to maintain her guards permanently, but before deciding to withdraw them she wants to be sure that the railway will be reasonably free from the attacks of banditry for which the territory is noted. What is more important, she must be convinced of the good faith of the Chinese authorities and the integrity of the Chinese officers of the law.

There is the essence of the dilemma in negotiations with China. She is enough of a nation to join the League and carry her complaints to Geneva* but she is not enough of a nation to pay her subscription. China is enough of a nation to feel the slights put upon her sovereignty by the "unequal treaties," but she is not enough of a nation to guarantee the good faith of her officers, the integrity of her Courts, or the security of foreign life and property without the old-fashioned sanctions behind them. The 20,000 bandits and irregulars who were reported yesterday to be overrunning the South Manchurian railway -zone and endangering the small Japanese force are really a far greater danger to China herself.