ASIA’S INFANT STATE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17918, 24 October 1932, Page 12

ASIA’S INFANT STATE

GOOD OFFICIALS SCARCE BULWARK AGAINST COMMUNISM MUKDEN, Manchuria, Sept. (I. Critics have been free to label Manelnikuo, the new infant state that once was Manchuria, a puppet State, the marionette of Japan. One is not sure how far Japan is willing to subscribe to the notion. She is finding, indeed, how little heed the puppet is !paving to manipulation. ] Japan all along has asserted that, having helped Manchuria to cut adrift from the anarchy of China, and being ready to protect it from outside aggression, she will not interfere with internal administration. Most people are slow to believe Tokio will allow a flee hand. Complete recognition is accorded tho well-known principle that a .Chinese official with unlimited command of revenues can see no further than his own and his family’s requirements; the State sense is not developed. In all departments of Government Japanese safeguards arc applied. SUPPORT OF THE JAPANESE One of the biggest problems of Manchukuo is the discovery of talented officials. Big men have been hard to find. Many prospective Ministers, when approached to take office, have explained that they have relatives and property in Pekin or other parts of China proper open to punishment ami seizure. Moreover, the activities of the League of Nations at first tended to convince them that international interference would be on behalf of the status quo ante. Manchuria has support in the Japanese army, which is keeping the country intact from outside aggression and supporting the Changchun Government in its efforts to suppress civil warfare and banditry. Japan is pouring out gold in keeping the peace, but whether she will get it back is a question unanswerable now. Foreign sentiment so far in Manchuria has been opposed to the new Government and Japanese activities. Americans and British particularly fear Japanese absorption of tho market. . But there is a considerable body of opinion here which contends that Japanese domination of the field will mean more business for all nations. First peace, then control, revived agriculture and industry, more roads, more staple goods which Japan can supply, more special goods from America and Britain. The outlook here is encouraging, certainly more cheerful than in China proper. Here is a bulwark against the Communism which slowly is overwhelming China and will crush its foreign trade. PRESIDENT PU YI President Pu Y.i, erstwhile Emperor t of China, is proving himself more of an administrator than most people expected. The young man has shown a taste for his job and a decidedly ambitious outlook. Pu Yi has his eyes on the throne of Pekin; the restoration impulse is not dead. One hears from well-.informed sources that there is a strong possibility of a Monarchist party developing in North China, which would beckon to the dynastic successor.

Pu Yi responds it may be his stop to doom. No leader has moved from Manchuria into China proper without, encountering disaster. The Manehu dynasty fell; Chang Tso-lin was assassinated; his son was deposed from Manchurian leadership. Pu Yi has said that if he aimed at attaining tho Dragon Throne in Pekin lie first must display his capacity for sovereignty in Manchuria.