JAPAN’S PROBLEM.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18776, 26 October 1932, Page 5

JAPAN’S PROBLEM.

CONTROL OF MANCHURIA. NO EASY TASK. A MISSIONARY’S VIEWS. Visiting Wellington is Dr. E. J. Stuckey, 0.8. E., 8.50., medical superintendent of the McKenzie Memorial Hospital at Tientsin, North China. Dr. Stuckey Is on a two-years’ furlough, after 20 years’ work in China with the Church Missionary Society, not that such furloughs are very restful, for after two months in New Zealand, during which he will be delivering many lectures and addresses, be is to return to Australia and take up deputation work, which means an extended tour of the Australian States.

“My experience of China,” said Dr. Stuckey to the Wellington Dominion, “dates back to just after the RussoJapanese war. 1 was first stationed at a place some 200 miles south of Pekin, but after four years I was transferred to Pekin, where I became associated with the Union Medical College, which was established by a union of all the church missionary societies operating in China. Long since then the college was taken under the wing of the Rockefeller Foundation, which by the expenditure of some four or five million dollars has made it the finest medical college in China. This college was founded for the training of young Chinese In medicine and surgery.”

Good Intellectual Type. Asked as to whether the Chinese were apt in assimilating knowledge in W’estern medicine and surgery, Dr. Stuckey said that the Chinese he had come in contact with could learn all they could teach them. “People out here and in Australia,” said Dr. Stuckey, “are apt to judge the whole Chinese race by the Chinese they encounter 'in these countries. They could not be further astray. There is a type of Chinese which is bright and very intelligent, quick to grasp what Is meant, and very ready In applying the knowdedge. You have 'had Dr. Koo down here. There are many like him In North China; very keen Intellects, and In all respects equal to any other race. I have the very greatest admiration and respect for the Chinese as a people. As far as we are concerned they still prefer their own native doctors for * inside’ medicine, but for ‘outside’ medicine (surgery) they give us the palm. “Personally I think there is a great future for the Chinese nation,” said Dr. Stuckey. “At present everything Is upside down; there is no stable Government, and there is a very Intense feeling among all Chinese against Japan over Manchuria, but largely, I think, this national turbulence Is consequent upon the change in control after thousands of years from a monarchial form of government to a republic. What I base my conclusions on are the natural resources of the country, the vaslncss of the population, and the fact that there is no people In the world so amenable to good government. Wherever they go they make peaceable, hardworking citizens. i Boycott a Strong Weapon.

“At the present time, of course,” continued Dr. Stuckey, “they are all disturbed over the action of Japan in seeking to establish herself in control in Manchuria, and out of that and the Shanghai affair there is a bitter boycott of everything Japanese throughout the country. Not so long ago this was so Intense that there were occasions when Chinese shopkeepers who sold Japanese goods were maltreated and their stocks were seized and burned; but the Government is now seeking to prevent such drastic action. Still, the boycott is very much on, and will be so long as Japan attempts to exercise control of Manchuria.

“My own opinion is that Japan or any other nation which tries to seize Manchuria will find there a rather Indigestible morsel, and my view is that Japan will never hold Manchuria. What Is the position? You have a vast country with a population of 28,000,000 Chinese, 1,000,000 Koreans, and only 200,000 Japanese. The last 15 years has witnessed the greatest migration in history—the migration of 1,000,000 people from tho northern provinces of China to Manchuria, people of the best pioneer stock, who must play a part in deciding the ultimate fate of .Manchuria.

China Expected to Win. • “Japan'may throw in her troops, as she Is doing to-day, but China will win by passive resistance and guerrilla warfare, in both of which methods she is expert enough to wear Japan out. Moreover, Japan cannot afford another big war. Indeed she is in a very precarious situation politically, with the Military, Liberal, Socialist and Communist Parties contending for power. At present the military and naval party has the ear of the Emperor, and it is the heads of those organisations which call the tune at the present time, but there are those who believe that Japan’s state is such that she may go bankrupt or experience revolution, so that what is going to happen to Japan and, incidentally, to Manchuria is in the lap of the gods." Dr. Stuckey has been in Tientsin for the last ten years, and at the new Memorial Hospital, which lie helped to ‘organise and which cost £20,000, they now had, he said, a clinic of from 000 to 500 patients a day. The patients are asked lo pay a small fee. That was best for them and for the authorities, if a Chinese got his medicine free and did not like it he would pour it into tiie nearest gutter, hut if lie paid for it lie would drink every drop as ordered. At present the Government of the territory dominated by Tientsin was under Marshal Chang llsueh-liang, one of the astute war lords of the north. Indeed tiie whole country was under tiie various war lords, who had large bodies of troops under their control and governed through force of arms. Dr. Stuckey was one of the Australian group at tiie PaciHo Relations Conference held in Tientsin last year.