NOT ALL SPIES

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 19 (Supplement)

NOT ALL SPIES

VISITORS TO JAPAN. DECISION OF MINISTRY. An order designed to placate foreigners and to help the tourist business has been passed down to the. Japanese police from the Ministry of the Interior, intimating that in the future it will not be necessary to look upon all foreigners travelling in Japan as spies, writes Reginald Sweetland in the San Francisco Chronicle. For years a complete record of all foreigners and their activities has been kept by the Metropolitan Police Board, the masses of information correlated and filed away for possible future use. In this respect Japan and Russia are closely akin. Maps of Japan posted in conspicuous places in ships and trains are designed to warn all-comers, especially aliens, where lie the fortified zones, and, judging by these, the only places where foreigners may be seen with, or even in some cases without, a camera are the mountainous central regions. Foreigners travelling in the small towns and villages off the usual tourist routes are closely Observed and repeatedly questioned by the local police, by the Uniformed gendarmes, by plainclothes men, and by members of the “foreign bureau” of the local government. Their arrival and departure are noted, the reasons for their stay, and Japanese who come in contact with such visitors are also questioned. While visitors praise in loud terms the courtesy and kindliness of the Japanese people, they are speaking most frequently of those long accustomed to foreign ways and those who serve them along the usual tourist paths. Let the average foreigner, be he American, Dane or British, be seen strolling through the hills or along the coast, and he immediately rims into a network of police investigations. DETAINED FOR DAYS. Foreigners have been detained for days when they have done nothing rhbre serious than drive ah automobile from one Village tb ahbther, ahd frbfn Village to Village goes the word that the touring alien must be watched, detained and questioned. Let a torbigher step off a train ih any small town Or Village ih Japan and that fact is noted immediately by the local policeman, who is at the station seemingly just for this One purpose. Fifteen later a member of the police force is at the inn questioning the inhkfeeper as well as the foreign visitor. Then comes a member of the gendannOrie ahd tifeh a ihember Of the Foreign Bureau. The ifln attendants are questioned daily about the activities of this unwanted Visitor, whether the locale is Within the fortified zone br not; the foreigner is shadowed all about town, and it is not until the pbliObmah 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 bn an authentic passport is never alone sufficient, for Japanese seemingly doubt the authenticity of their own stamps,, signatures and markings. Neither will thfe gendarmes accept the information wrung out of visitors by the police or by the Foreign Bureau of the local prefectures, Tbkib has bhe, big hotel catering for foreigners, in the lobby of this hotel night and day, are to be found police agents whose duty it 5s to gather all available information about incoming and outgoing aliens. • COMPLAINTS GROW. Oh trains and in native tons ah'd bh ships it is the same. At no iifhe While travelling oif thb regular tourist phths is 'tiie ibreigd visitor able to feel that he is nb't Under suspicion ahd tHat. h.is presence & not This is often true also of the ustral .tourist ibtites, American college prbfessojrs and others who havb returned to the united States to lecture havfe ihbre than bn'cb remarked that a Japanese has generally been .ptbseht at their lectures, hibr is this all. A copy, of. the lecftito -has been sent back tb the Tbkib Foreign Office, police haVe looked Up the record of thfe lecturer, and have then closely quertioned all Japanese who have imparted information to the visiting. American during his stay in Japan. Because the number bf 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 thd habits bf suspicion are tod deeply ingrained to be eradicated ih a Short time.