JAPAN INDICTED.

Western Star, 5 August 1938, Page 2

JAPAN INDICTED.

fNVASION WITH DRUGS. HER CONDUCT IN CHINA. A very strong indictment of Japanese methods in occupying China was made by Mr George Butler (U.S.A.) before the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium, said a Geneva, message to ‘The Times’ on June 13. The accusation had been made that Japan was deliberately flooding China with opium and heroin as part of the methods of overcoming Chinese resistance, and that the traffic, of which there had been a vast increase, was in the control of the Japanese army, with disastrous results to the Chinese population and with repercussions on the illicit international traffic that were likely to he of great danger to the rest of the world. Mr Butler’s denunciation was supported by the representatives of Egypt, Cant ada, India, and Great Britain. The Japanese representative, Mr Amau, had declared that his Government was sparing no effort to suppress the use of opium in the occupied territory. Dr Hoo Chi-tsai, the Chinese representative, replied that hostilities had produced one comforting phenomenon—the disappearance of Japanese traffickers from the territories not occupied by Japanese troops. But generally, as the result of military operations, control had been weakened, and the most serious danger was the poisoning of the Chinese people in all parts of China where there was Japanese influence. AMERICAN INDICTMENT. It had increased to such an extent that it could be truly said .that Japan was invading China with drugs as well as soldiers. Consumption of opium was encouraged by the Japanese military authorities, and the menace was increased by the growth of clandestine manufacture.

Mr Butler said they had criticised Chinese reports in the past, .but on ttm present occasion he expressed his appreciation of the completeness and informative nature of th,e Chinese report. His own < information (he said) was that in Manchuria there had been no improvement in the past year. The regulation had seemed to be designed solely to secure to the Government a monopoly of profits from manufactured drugs as well as from raw and prepared opium. He gave figures to show that the exports from Korea to Manchuria had risen from 1,899 kilogrammes in 1933 to 211,238 kilogrammes in 1936. Large quantities of opium had been exported from Iran, and from Turkey. In China, between the Yellow River and the Great Wall, an area controlled for some time past by the Japanese army, conditions were far worse than they were a year ago. Illicit traffic was flourishing, and clandestine manufacture had increased beyond the wildest dreams of its promoters. FROM A SINGLE GANG. In a period of 15 months 650 kilogrammes of heroin, equivalent to twothirds of the world’s legitimate needs, were exported to the United States from the Japanese Concession in Tientsin by a single gang. ‘ Huge quantities of Iranian opium were reported to have arrived in North China and Shanghai consigned to the Japanese army, and further large consignments were on the way. Th e Japanese steamer Singapore Maru, flying the Japanese military transport flag, landed 728 chests of which 428 were sent to I’angku under the control of a Japanese army officer, and 300 to Shanghai, where they were taken over by the Japanese army. A colonel of the Japanese army had had the j>ale of 2,875 chests (460,0001 b) of Iranian opium, and he was now negotiating with the provisional regime set up by the Japanese army in Shanghai to open a large heroin factory there, _ Altogether the situation in the parts of China under Japanese control was worse than ever, and gave cause to the entire world for serious apprehension,.