NOT ALL SPIES

Evening Star, Issue 21960, 21 February 1935, Page 11

NOT ALL SPIES

An order desgned to placate foreigners and to help the tourist business has been passed dovn to the Japanese police from the Ministry of the interior, intimating that ii the future it wijl not be necessary tij look upon all foreigners travelling in Japan as spies, writes Reginald Sweeland, in the ‘ San Francisco Chronidd’ For years a complete record of all foreigners andjtheir activities has been kept by the ifetropolitan Police Board, the masses ol information correlated and filed awaj for possible future use. In this respei Japan and Russia are closely akin. I Maps of Jajan posted in conspicuous places in ship] and trains are designed to warn allcimers, especially aliens, where lie the fortified zones, and, judging by these the only places where foreigners mar be seen with, or even in some case/ without, a camera are the mountain us central regions. Foreigners (travelling in the small towns and vilages off the usual tourist routes are cliely observed and repeatedly questional by the local police, by the gendarmes, by plainclothes men, and by members of the ‘‘ foreign bunau ” of the local government. Their arrral and departure are noted, the r<isons for their stay, and J ajpanese whc come in contact with such visitors are ilao questioned. While visitors prais in loud terms the courtesy and kidliness of the Japanese people, they are speaking most frequently of nose long accustomed to foreign ways ind those who serve them along the us al tourist paths. Let the verage foreigner, be he American, line, or British, be seen strolling thnigh the hills or along the coast, and h immediately runs into a network of slice investigations. Foreigners have been detained for days when thy have done nothing more serious than drive an automobile from one village t another, and from village to village gqs the word that the touring alien mUt be watched, detained, and questioitd.

Let a foreigner step oft’ a train in any small town or village in Japan and that fact is noted immediately by the local policeman, who is at the station seemingly just for this one purpose. Fifteen minutes later a member of the police force is at the inn questioning tho innkeeper as well as the foreign visitor. Then comes a member of the gendarmerie and then a member of the foreign bureau. The inn attendants are questioned daily about the activities of this unwanted visitor, whether the locale is within the fortified zone or not; the foreginer is shadowed all about town, and it is not until the policeman can inform his superiors that the visitor has left town that he is able to sigh with relief.

Why ? Japanese will explain that employment must be found for everybody, and this is one of the means. A visa stamped on an authentic passport is never alone sufficient, for Japanese seemingly doubt the authenticity of their own stamps, signatures, and markings. Neither will the gendarmes accept the information wrung out of visitors by the police or by the foreign bureau of the local prefectures. Tokio has one big hotel catering for foreigners. In the lobby of this hotel night and day are to be found police agents whose duty it is to gather all available information about incoming and outgoing aliens.

On trains and in native inns and on ships it is the same. At no time while travelling off the regular tourist paths is the foreign visitor able to feel that he is not under suspicion and that his presence is not resented. This is often true also of the usual tourist routes.

American college professors and others who have returned to the United States to lecture have more than once remarked that a Japanese has generally been present at their lectures. Nor is this all.

A copy of the lecture has been sent back to the Tokio Foreign Office, police have looked up the record of the lecturer, and have then closely questioned all Japanese who have imparted information to the visiting American during his stay in Japan. Because the number of cases of deliberate interference has been growing and because tourist bureaux in Japan have complained that such procedure has been interfering with their business the Ministry of the Interior has announced that it has instructed police to be a little more careful in their treatment of foreign tourists and residents of Japan. A drastic change of method is not to be expected, for the habits of suspicion are too_ deeply ingrained to be eradicated in a short time..