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¿/p^JOlIN GUNTilCIPTHE STORY OF TWO

TWENTY-SIX.(CONTINUED.)

TN May, 1932, Prime Ministei

??- Inukai was killed by soldiers

He believed in a peaceful policj

towards China; he had been £

friend of Sun Yat-sen's. He wai

77. On this occasion, too, at-

tempts were made to bomb the

Mitsubishi bank, the police head-

quarters, and Count Makino.Pour years later came the carnival ol

Two Twenty-Six. Since then there have

been no important political murders.

Japanese Miscellany.

In Japan a belch is a compliment. In

Japan the monstrous professional wrest-

lers wear their hair up, women were

for generations forbidden to climb Mount

Fujiyama, and manicurists stand at work.

When a Japanese politician gets drunk it

may be prominently reportedin the

papers, since little stigma attaches to

drunkenness in Japan.In Japan the north-west corner of a

garden is protected by shrubbery, because

this is the direction from which evil

spirits may enter; in Japan no one will

have 4 or 49 as a house number, be-

cause these numbers are considered un-

lucky like our 13 (the ideograph for 4

is pronounced similarly to the one for

death, and 9 means sadness); in Japan

an officer sentenced to death is shot

through a curtain,since it is inconceiv-

able that a private should actually see

that he is shooting a man of higher rank.

In Japan a person's age is counted

from the date of conception, not from

birth; nouns have no inflection or num-

ber and verbs no person; a cup of tea

should properly be drunk to exactly tiiree

and a half gulps, and pillows are made

of wood.In Japan the traffic policemen and

school children wear nose guards to keep

out the dust and influenza germs; the

colour end shape of the übe (a kind of

sash) gives evidence of a woman's age

and social station; newspaper extras are

announced by bells; waitresses in cates

are called, more or less, "Mister Ghi";

and snake soup is a great delicacy.

JAPAN MAKES WAR.

JAPAN'Sforeign policy, which

is the expression of its

urgent will to expand, is basedon a trinity of factors. First,

. Economic shortages at home.

Second, population pressure.

Third, political considerations,which include ethnic and semi

religious items;

. n^HE position In regard to shortage of

raw materials is not quite so serious

as is generally assumed. Prom several

points of view it is rather difficult to call

Japan a "Have-Not" nation-if only be-

cause a country which has swallowedManchuria and a considerable part of

China is suffering from a glut of un

assimilated hinterland, rather than ailack of it. Japan is the first nation'in the world in export ;

of textiles, the' first in rayon manufacture and export,

the. first in silk, the first in i

manufacture of plate glass, It I

is the third country in cotton spindling,1the third in shipping, the- fourth in

hydro-electric development, the fourth

in chemicals. Japan is self-sufficient in

food, as I have already noted, and it

produces 95 per cent of its own coal. It

is very nearly self-sufficient in graphite,sulphur, and some minor metals.

Conversely Japan has drastic weak-

nesses in other important raw materials.

It must import very nearly all . its raw

cotton, the basis of its great export trade.

It must import 100 per cent of its nickel I

and mercury, and-of critical significance-90 per cent of its petroleum, 65 per cent

of its iron and steel. It is seriouslydeficient in lead, zinc, aluminium, cop-

per.Of course the fact that a country lacks

raw materials does not necessarily jus-

tify aggression to secure them. Switzer-

land and Sweden are "Have-Not" Pow-

ers; but they do not make wars. The

Japanese could normally purchase raw

materials quite freely. No one objected to

selling them rubber, or cotton or anythingelse, the United States is at this moment

contributing a large part of the material?-especially scrap iron and oil-withwhich they make war. The difficulty is

not that the Japanese cannot buy raw

materials, but that they don't have

enough cash to buy all they need.\

Another difficulty-and justification forthe expansionist programme, from theJapanese point of view-is that in the

event of a general conflict, a world war,

sources of supply might be cut off.

As to population pressure the Japan-ese are beyond doubt in a unique posi-tion. The density of population, 2,750per square mile of arable land, is the

highest in the world. The area of Japanis 148,000 square miles, which is less

than that of California. Yet in that

area, of which less than one-fifth is

arable, Japan must support a populationapproximately half of that of the entire

United States. One is tempted in re-

gard to .Germany and Italy, the other!

so-called "Have-Not" States, to minimisethe claim for expansion on populationgrounds, since it has notes of sophistry;the Germans and Italians demand room

because their population is expanding,j

while at the same time they do every-thing possible to encourage more babies.

In Japan this is not quite the case;

birth control is legal-though no one

seems to pay much attention to it. PourJapanese babies are born every minute,and by 1960 the population of Japanwill be 90,000,000 people if the presentbirth-rate and death-rate are main-tained.

Despite the fact that they are so un-

believably congested the Japanese are

indifferent colonisers. The average Jap-anese hates to leave his own country,unless to go to some warm place with

a much higher standard of living. Theydislike cold. Hokkaido, the northernisland, part of Japan itself, is only halfoccupied. Many Japanese have gone to

Brazil, and until the American Exclu-

sion Act of 1924-which greatly irritatedJapan and which was a contributorycause to the "active" China policy-theyliked California. But it has been almostimpossible to persuade Japanese to emi-

grate to the colonies which they now

possess, a point which makes it doubt-ful if population pressure per se is full

justification for the expansionist pro-

gramme. Japan has had Formosa since1895, and Korea since 1905, but very fewJapanese have settled in either place;in Formosa the Japanese have had actu-

ally to import Chinese labour. Japan hashad Manchukuo since 1931, but onlyabout 10,000 Japanese colonists have emi-

grated there-an infinitesimal numberalthough it is both rich and under-

populated, though Chinese went there bythe millions, and though the Japaneseauthorities have made every effort to

encourage and indeed subsidise emigra-tion.

Above and beyond the economic anddemographic factors is consideration of

politics. Japan wants to expand be-cause it considers itself a world Powerinvested with an imperial mission to

dominate East 'Asia. This mission has iracial and religious overtones-as thequotations in the preceding chapter have,I hope, indicated-but the main motiveis political. Japan wants to expandin order to be stronger vis-a-vis theSoviet Union, in order to squeeze GreatBritain out of China, in order to ex-

tend its nationalist influence southwardinto Asia and the Pacific. It bas never

precisely defined what it means by "East

Asia," but it regards large sections ofAsia as we regarded the land west of theMississippi in our own expansionist days.Questions of ultimate power move Japan.It wants political hegemony over what it

calls its hinterland.Now let us point out that Japan was

by no means the only country which bitjoff chunks of Asia in recent times. By |

no means. Prostrate China was loot ifor all. Tile French successively nipped

1

pieces of Indo-China, quite as uncon-j

scionably as Japan snapped up Manchu-;

ria. Fi-ance seized Cochin China andCambodia, which were then integral partsof China, in 1863, without bothèring to

ask anybody's permission, and later took

Armani. In the 1860's; Czarist Russiacalmly stole the Amur River region andthe Maritime Provinces of Siberia. TheBritish have swashbuckled through China

for almcst a century. They grabbed HongKong, pinched off Burma (which no one

remembers was once part of China), and

"absorbed"- some subordinate.

Chineseprovinces, like Bhutan and Nepal, just as

Japan "absorbed" Jehol. Pre-war Ger-,many took the Kiachow region in Shan-

tung.Japan was late to the imperialist feast,

and perhaps her methods were morebrusque, more brutal and direct. But in

essence Japan did nothing that the other

Powers had not done. No European handsare clean. The Japanese are, we havenoted, excellent mimics; and the tech-

nique of modern imperialism was some-

thing they were very quick to copy^-andaugment. The fact, of course, that theyimitated and amplified the European sys-tem of seizure and exploitation does notmake the system any pleasanter, or the

exploitation more justifiable.

So much for the general aspects ofJapanese foreign policy. We have alreadyin chapter II indicated something of

Japan's particular attitude to China. Letus proceed.

Japanese Expansion: First Phase.

In a sense Japan for some yeras lookedat the China seabpard much as Great

Britain looked at the low countries. Hol-

land and Belgium, a century ago. In

another sense Japan versus China re-sembled Germany versus pre-Nazi Aus-

tria; a new, powerful, and ambitiousState attempting to seize an older, mel-

lower State with which it shared a com-

mon origin. A highly placed Japanesestatesmen told me, "You must never for-

get that China is the woman, and we

are a man. . She must be punished." I

asked what would happen if the woman

continued to resist. "Ah," my friend re-

plied, "we cut off her arms and legs."Then there is trade. Eighty per cent

of all Japanese overseas investments are

in China, amounting to roughly£120,000,000; the great mills in Shang-hai-with their hideous slums-are 24per cent Japanese owned. In normal timesChina took 10 per cept at elast ofJapan's total exports, which amountedto 16 per cent of China's total imports.Of China's total export trade, 15.7 percent went to Japan in 1933, 14.5 ta 1936.

This trade was of great value to Japan.

I

It has been disastrously crippled byChir.ese boycott and war. But one

must assume that Japan hopes to reviveit, hopes to resume exploitation of the

China market, which potentially is the

greatest in the world. Thus the doubleaspect of Japan's policy. Crush China

-in order that itmay be forced to buy.

Make war on China-but don't kill it

altogether. Cut off the arms and legs-but leave the profitable body.

For a long time it was as impossibleto get a Japanese to define preciselywhat Japan's ultimate policy towardsChina was as to get an inclusive defini-tion of "East Asia." (Are the Philippinespart of "East Asia?" Are the Dutch EastIndies part of "East Asia?" We do not

know-though we may have a prettygood guess.) For a long time no one

-in Japan itself as well as outside-knewif Japan would be satisfied with the FiveNorthern Provinces of China, or would

attempt conquest southward. We do

not know if Japan wanted to establish a

colony, or a puppet State, or a militaryprotectorate, or all three together-whichis what is happening now. We still do

not know how far Japan intends to go

militarily-or how far Japan can go. Butlate in 1938 Japanese designs at leastwere officially made concrete, with the

announcement that Japan, Manchukuo,.and "China" were to become a singlepolitical and economic bloc.

We cannot presume to include a his-tory of Sino-Japanese relations in this

brief space. We can only barely men-

tion such events as the first Sino-Japan-ese war (1894-5), as a result of whichChina was forced to surrender Formosato Japan and to give up her claims to

Korea, or the Russo-Japanese war

^5INCE this book was written x

many important political f>

changes have occurred in Japan, x

On August 29, following the &

resignation of the Prime Minister $(Baron Hironuma), as a sequel &

to the signing of the Russo-|>

German Pact, a new Cabinet %under General Nobuyiki Abe was

<|formed. The Japanese Foreign % ?Minister is now Admiral No- èmura. Thus several comments x

in the chapter on "Japan Makes &

War," especially that concern-J?

ing the Anti-Commitern Pact, |> ,

may have lost a little of their Ç

significance. %

(1904-5), which established Japan as a

world Power. Both these wars were

fought basically over Korea, which Japanneeded as a preliminary toehold on themainland. Korea has been a Japanese

colony since 1910. Politically it is a landof 20,000,000 slaves. Beyond KoreaChina.

In 1915 came the famous Twenty-OneDemands, which were forced on China

during the Great War, When China was

helpless and when Japan's then-alliesGreat Britain, Russia, France-had no

time or energy to spare. We cannot listthe Demands in full; they presented Chinawith a 40-hour ultimatum virtually im-

posing Japanese sovereignty on thecountry. Japan, was to control Shan-tung, to extend lier influence in Man-

churia, to have special rights in Fuklen,and to have mining and railway conces-

sions elsewhere; China was to purchasemost of her munitions from Japan, giveJapan partial control of the Chinesepolice, and appoint"Japanese political ad-visers. Through' a variety ol circum-stances tile Demands were watered down

before, they were accepted-partly as a

result of vigorous , protest from theUnited States, .which insisted that the"Open Door" (equality of all nations in

China) be maintained-but they clearlymarked a new and ambitious stage inJapan's foreign policy.

In 1927-ancther milestone-came the.

Tanaka Memorial, which purported to be

a statement by General Tanaka, then

Prime Minister of Japan, of the trench-ant aims of his country. It said: "For

settling difficulties in Eastern Asia, Japanmust adopt a policy of Blood and Iron.

. . . In order to conquer the world, Japanmust conquer Europe and Asia; in orderto conquer Europe and Asia, Japan- mustfirst conquer China, and in order to con-

quer China, Japan must conquer Manchu-

ria and Mongolia. Japan expects to ful-fil the above programme in 10 years."Japanese steadily have denied authenti-city to the Tanaka Memorial, but thedocument, genuine or not, certainly con-

tained some accurate prophecy. Japanhas followed it almost as faithfully as

Hitler has followed "Mein Kampf."The next great mileteone was the Muk-

den (Manchuria) incident of September18, 1931, from which all subsequent his-tory of the Far East derives.

The Manchurian Complex.

I pause now to inspect Manchuria. Itis impossible to proceed without a sur-

vey of Manchurian background. Know

nowadays as Manchukuo, it is one of themost fascinating regions in the world, a

country twice the size of Germany(503,000 square miles), with roughly35,000,000 people. For many years its

chief characters were two great charac-ters were two great railways and a war

lord.

By almost every criterion-geography,language, history, the impact of several

migrations-Manchuria was indisputablya part of China. It was the China "above

the wall." But it is one of those un-

fortunate regions where permanent inter-national conflict is inevitable. Its positiongave it formidable strategic importance,because it had a common frontier with

Russia, and wa« exposed olosely to Japa-nese penetration. It has oven greaterimportance now, because it ls the tre-

mendous buffer between Japan, China,and the U.S.S.R. When Japan took it in1931, the march to empire really be-gan.

Turn back a little. I have mentionedthe Sino-Japanese war of 1894-5. Thiswas a staggering catastrophe for China.What happened was that, not only Japan,but other powers, took advantage of theChinese defeat to grab loot as notedabove. The best loot was in the Man-

churian provinces. But it was not the

only loot. The chief thieves were Russiaand Japan in Manchuria. But the Ger-

mans seized Kiaochow, the British"leased" the port of Wei-hai-wei and theKowloon peninsula opposite Hong Kong,and the French took the bay of Kwangchow in the far south. (What the UnitedStates did was enunciate the open-doorprinciple, without too sticky fingers.)

The rivalry over loot between Russia

and Japan at this time is a germinal fact

the sprouting of which we still see today.The story is complex. First, China was

forced to cede to Japan not only Formosa,but that crucially important Manchurianarea known as the Kwantung or Liaotung peninsula-a sort of dagger pointingto Korea and Japan.

Second, the great Powers became

alarmed that Japan should get this

Kwantung peninsula, and formed a "Drei-

bund" (France, Russia, Germany), de-

manding that she give it back. Japanwas forced to do so-but not to China.It went to China in theorv. but P rw«w

ber of the "Dreibund"-Russia-actuallytook it. So Czarist Russia seized the

chief fruit of Japanese victory, which

made the Japanese, a long-minded people,somewhat resentful of white imperialmethods.

Third, China was assessed a consider-able indemnity, and could not nay. So a

Franco-Russian loan was floated, the pro-

ceeds of which went to China-in order

to pay Japan-in return for which Rus-

sian interests (behind whom were Frenchinvestors) obtained highly imoortantrights and concessions. A Russo-Chinesebank was established, and its main func-

tion was to finance railway constructionin Manchuria. Meantime Russia and

China siened a secret treaty of alliance

against Japanese aggression. Russia and

France, in other words, were on one handgiving Japan its cash indemnity, on be-

half of China, while, on the other, Rus

cia and China were attempting to freeze

Japan out of further China loot, espe-

cially in Manchuria. Result (followingRussian occupation of Manchuria and

penetration towards Korea) : Ja Dan's suc-

cessful attack on Russia in 1904.We must pause now to tell the story

of the railways, which is also germinal.The struggle between railways in Man-

churia and Siberia is progressing to hisdav. First, the Chinese Eastern Rail-way.

This was the Russian line in Man-

churia. It was built following the eventsiust described. Nominally, the Chinesehad 9 share in its direction, but in factit was almost totally a Russian institu-tion. It ran from Manchouli, on the west-ern frontier of Manchuria, to Vladi

vostock, the Russian port on the Pacific,

and thus traversed Manchuria in rouehlya north-west to south-east direction..

Strategically, it was of great importance,and for two reasons: (1) It ran parallelto the Trans-Siberian, which was ex-

clusively on Russian territory, but. by cut-ting through Manchuria: shortened thedistance to Vladivostock bv several days:(2) it gave Russia a life-line into Man-churia, with all manner of derivative

j

rights-for instance, that of maintaininga mi$tary garrison-and Manchuria, beit remembered, was part of China. Pre-

j

gently, the Chinese Eastern was extended;with a spurline running roughlv nórtv» to

j

south from Harbin, on the main line,

down through the Kwantung peninsulato Dalny (now called Dairen) and PortArthur, which was then Russian terrir

tory.

Second, the South Manchuria Railway.Japan licked Russia in 1905. and byterms of the Treaty of Portsmouth,promotly took back the Kwantung area,of which she had been deorived ten years

before and which thereafter became thespearhead of Japanese penetration intoManchuria. Also-and most importantly-Japan demanded and got most of thesouthern spur of the Chinese Eastern,which she renamed the South ManchuriaRailway: and promptly reorganised andextended. Thus began one of .the exeatestrailway organisations in the world. . TheSouth Manchuria-commonly called theS.M.R.-was for 25 years, and still is. theartery of arteries through which Japanpumned money-and blood-into Man-

churia. Jaoan got the right to keep troopsin Kwantung-the origin of the Kwan-

tung army I have alreadv described-andin the railway zone. Southern Man-

churia, by reason of the railway, became

a Japanese SDhere of influence. The Rus-

sians were forced to retreat into thenorth

(It is convenient at this point, even if

it means jumping ahead of the story, to

deal briefly with the subsequent historyof the Chinese Eastern. Friction was rifefor years between the Japanese, on theirrailway in the south, and the Russians,with theirs in the north. After the GreatWar the Soviet Government, much less

imperialist than that of the Czar, sur-

rendered its extraterritorial privileges inChina, and in 1924 partially turned backthe Chinese Eastern to the Chinese,whose railway it should have been in

the first place. But rivalries continued tobring trouble. First, the Chinese wantedmore control, and provoked an incident in1929 that brought actual, if abortive,warfare. Mr. Stimson had to invoke theKellogg Pact. Second, tension between !Russians and Japanese kept on mounting,and the Chinese Eastern remained thescene of interminable "incidents"-mur-ders of rail guards, wreckages of trains,and so forth. In 1934 Russia sold therailways outright to Japan, after Japanhad ousted China from the area. TheRussians asked for 625,000,000 yen, andtook 160,000,000, plus certain allowances.Promptly the Japanese changed it fromthe Russian broad gauge to normal, and

incorporated it in the South Manchuriasystem. -So the Chinese Eastern, after a

history as noisy as that of any railway in

the world, disappeared.)To'return.-While, after 1905, the Japa-

nese and Russians resharpened theirtongues and sabres, the Government of

Manchuria was vested theoretically inChinese hands. Manchuria was

"

legallypart of China. What were the chinese

tíolna to protect and preserve Uut vitalprovince? Very Uttle-beoauso from 1813to 1928 Manchuria was under the controlof a semi-independent war lord, the re-

doubtable Chan Tso-lin. We must have a

paragraph about this gentleman. Enor-mous numbers of Chinese were pouringinto Manchuria, which was empty, fromthe northern provinces of Chipa proper,

which were suffocatingly crowded. How

was Chang Tso-rlin ruling them? Mostlyby playing China and Japan against eachother.

Chang Tso-lin was born in 1873. Pro-

bably he was t..e most picturesque of allthe great Chinese war lords. He was the

son of a shepherd; he was a servant fora time, and then a soldier; he became a

guerilla chieftain, and was hired by the

Japanese to harass the Russians. He

maintained his connection with the Japa-nese until his death ; but it was they who

killed him. In 1922 he boasted to a groupof American newspaper men that, in the

past few years, the Japanese had givenhim 8,000.000 yen, and that before he was

finished he would milk them of -

80,000,000. He said that he never ren-

dered service for the money until the lastmoment, and then only when he could notavoid it. When he died he was worthat least 50,000,000 Chinese dollars. At one

time a great American bank set up a

branch in Manchuria merely to take careof his investments. His fortune wentlargely to his son, the "Young Marshal"Chang Hsueh-liang. of whom we willhear much in this book.

Chang Tso-lin was unlettered, but a

great gentleman. He was a bandit anda killer, and he had a tidy acquisitivemind. He was a small man, paunchytowards the end, and pale with opium;he had exceptionally small and delicatehands, and was proud of his neat, finelyformed features. Once he dined at theAmerican Embassy in Peking; his hostwas somewhat shocked that he brought a

bodyguard of 21 men. who also had to be

fed. One servant stood all evening be-

fore his chair, holding ready a successionof lighted cigarettes. The legend is thathe drank tigers' blood as an aphrodisiac.The story is probably untrue, .and derivedfrom the fact that tigers' whiskers arepopular among Manchurians of the

period, since, tied, together like a fly

whisk, they were supposed to be a lovecharm. So. were the powdered horns of a

certain kind of deer. Chan-ï Tso-lin wasfond of this powder.

The Marshal rose by his own efforts,and by the sound practice of paying histroops well. The money, of course, hesucked out of the countryside. By 1913he had become military governor of oneof the Manchurian provinces, and by1918 he was in control of all Manchuria.He sided, but coyly, with the Kuomin-tang revolutionists, who made the Chineserepublic. His allegiance was a phenome-non subject of fluctuation. In 1924 hedecided that Manchuria was too small forhis ambitions, and he expanded intoChina below the Great Wall. He. took Pe-king, made it his capital, and wanted to be-come Emperor of China under a new

dynasty. He started making his ownimperial porcelain (a sure indication ofmonarchical ambition); he prayed in

those sections of the Forbidden City closedto all except the former Emperor; whenhe left his palace, the streets were shutoff, and showered with golden sand. Butrising in the south was Chiang Kai-shek,the new nationalist leader. Chang andChiang had worked together-at a dis-tance-but they didn't approve of oneanother. Chiang Kai-shek was settingout to unify China as a republic, and hisarmies approached Peking. MarshalChang's allies melted away, and presentlyhe himself, had to flee. - He had never

surrendered his hold on Manchuria, andwith this giddy Peking period apparentlyterminated, he decided-to return to Muk-

den, his home and origma! capital. He

never got there.

The bomb that killed him was carefullyprepared and placed. The explosion tookplace just outside Mukden (June 4,1928)as his special train, travelling on thePeking-Mukden line, crossed under theviaduct of the South Manchuria line toDa hen. The bomb, well within the Jap-anese railway zone, was apparently. de-

tonated by wires leading past Japanesesentries on the viaduct. Japanese work-men had been seen there in unusual cir-cumstances during the day-protected bythe concrete pillboxes guarding the line-and Chinese who attempted to approachare said to have been shot.: Chang Tsolin was not in his own carriage when thebomb ripped the train apart: He was

in the next car, and the explosion wastimed perfectly to get him. The pre-

sumption is that the assassins had con-

federates actually on the train. . . .Few

people know the precise details. Few will

ever knew.

(This chapter will be continued next

week.)

Nurse says"If there's anything better

than HEARNE'S BRON-CHITIS CURE I have yetto find it. I have never

lound anything so amazinglyeffective for Coughs, Colds

on the Chest, Croup, Bron-

chitis, etc. No morphia in

it either." 2/6 and 4/6.

Always insist on . ..

HEARNESBRONCHITIS CURE