Commonwealth and Foreign.

MANCHURIA : AFTER SIX YEARS

By RALPH MORTON

WREN Japan occupied Moukden on September i8th, 1931,

she could rely on the ignorance of public opinion in Europe regarding the Far East and on the preoccupation of European governments in their own economic affairs. The Lytton Commission, if it did nothing else, made public opinion in Europe aware of the real meaning of the action of Japan, but preoccupation with their own affairs has throughout these six years prevented other countries from taking any great interest in Manchuria. It is easy now to recognise the Moukden incident as the spark that set in flame the conflagration that would destroy the League of Nations. But Europe, while realising the fatal consequences of caution, has come to regard Manchukuo as an accomplished fact and has treated it partly as a side-issue which can be disregarded among the press of greater issues and partly as a joke.

But the fate of Manchuria can never be quite a side-issue, nor is it certain that the State of Manchukuo can be regarded as an accomplished fact, if by that we mean that its future is to continue along the lines of the present. And to regard the new State as a kind of hoax is dangerous. It offers a problem which lack of recognition by most other countries by no means solves. For the inconvenience to Japan of not gaining the recognition of Manchukuo by other powers is certainly offset by the gain in irresponsibility. Japan knows well how to attain her ends in Manchuria while asserting her irresponsibility for the actions of the friendly but independent State of Manchukuo.

Japan has certainly not found her task so easy as she had hoped, nor the benefits so great as she had expected. At a tremendous cost she has regained for the South Manchuria Railway domination of railway communications ; she has procured for a large number of her surplus population a means of livelihood ; and she has gained a monopolised market for her goods. What counts for more, she has gained control of a vast territory, and has saved it from possible Soviet influence, and now holds a position from which she dominates North China and Mongolia.

But how far have the face of the country and the life of the people changed ? The most obvious development is in the increase and improvement of communications and in the new buildings and greatly increased Japanese population of some of the larger towns. The railway system has been unified, extended and modernised. Motor roads, built by forced labour, extend all over the country. They are built too slightly to last long, but will probably sc on be macadamised and are primarily for military purposes. Air service between the main towns is also well developed. The cities are becoming more and more Japanese, but though the Japanese on giving up extraterritorial rights gained among.other benefits the right to own land anywhere not many are to be found in the country places. The currency has also been unified and nickel takes the place of the old small notes.

The common people make use of these amenities gladly and even rather proudly, but with no sense of gain. Security of life and property is no better, and the standard of living has not improved. Japanese efficiency has dealt, as foreign efficiency is liable anywhere to deal, with the externals of living alone. The streets are cleaner, there is some .attempt at public health, and dogs and bicycles must be registered. To the people such efficiency is a matter of irritation and of suspicion. They give more serious thought to the large tracts of land which are now abandoned. For in many parts for fear of bandits the Japanese have forced the peasants to destroy their houses and to live in towns far from their fields. In some of the more settled places their land has been given to Koreans. In place of the former annual immigration from China, as many as are free to do so try to go back. The wealthy have all gone. Now the poorest are going, and those who are concerned for the educa- tion of their children. The new roads which are proving the greatest blessing by providing easy communication are not weicomed because their great width—too feet for the main roads—takes a huge proportion of the small field of a peasant and there is no compensation. Everything seems to justify their greatest fear, that their land will be taken from them.

The Chinese inhabitant of Manchukuo finds the present dark for himself. He sees the future darker for his children. He sees the best jobs going increasingly to Japanese. For lack of a job he keeps his children at school as long as he can, but he finds that the door of the school is not opening any wider.

There has always been a strong desire for education in Man- churia, and the proportion of illiterates has been fairly low. Each village managed to have a school of sorts. Now the Japanese have raised the standard of efficiency in the schools, and the effect has been to close a great many schools which were certainly not up to standard but which were doing very useful work in the villages. The Japanese ideal is to make what schools there are efficient in the work of turning out the kind of citizen they want. Many primary schools have been closed and secondary education is now restricted to four years. Great attention is paid to sport and physical training and to manual work. In many schools the pupils do all the cleaning. Along this line of physical and manual education the schools show a great improvement. But the authorities would see in physical training the only outlet for the pupils' vitality. Intellectual education is carefully standardised and curtailed. Reading is discouraged and discussion forbidden. The text-books are few and inadequate and, of course, propagandist, and the teachers are forbidden to give any instruction outside them.

More time is always devoted to the study of Japanese than to the study of the pupils' own language. English is taught only in boys' secondary schools and there only for two hours a week.

In opposition to the ideal of sex equality in Chinese education and in line with Japanese practice, intellectual education is even more severely curtailed in girls' schoo's. In the future it will be practically impossible for a boy and certainly impossible for a girl from Manchuria to pass the entrance examination into a Chinese college.

The Japanese claimed that they occupied Manchuria to liberate the people. It was not pure pretence. The Japanese believed it. Their disillusionment is part of the price paid for Empire. It has bred in the minds of the officials a sus- picion of the thoughts of all the Chinese in Manchuria. The suspicion is equated with the fear of Communism. And so, especially in the last two years, they have given great attention to different types of " dangerous thinking " and to all kinds of societies and groups. No meeting' of any sort can be held without notice being given and notice must be given of any visitor in a house. Thousands have suffered imprisonment and torture. For the method is as much one of intimidation as of investigation. This has induced in the minds of all the Chinese inhabitants a fear and suspicion of all Japanese action which it is very difficult for' the altruism of well-intentioned Japanese to overcome.

It is inevitable that Korea should be taken as the model for Manchukuo. The Japanese Government certainly seems to be following the lines laid down in Korea. The people are apt to look at Korea as the picture of their future. But there is one great difference which makes the - future hard to foretell. When Korea was subjugated Korea was lost.

And the Koreans knew it. They are filled with an over- whelming feeling of despair, combined on the part of some with the hopeless desire for desperate action. And so assas- sination has been common. Manchuria has been conquered but there is still China. Despair is always tempered by the knowledge that China is still near, a refuge and a possible source of help. So the Chinese in Manchuria do not look to themselves for help. Any help that may come must come from some change in the relations of China and Japan. So there are few attempts at assassination,'a tremendous eagerness for news of China and the appearance of a ready. acquiescence. It is not difficult to see that the fighting in Shanghai and North China will have serious repercussions in Manchuria.

Any prolongation of the fighting, and especially any hint of Japan's discomfiture, will make Manchuria a source of danger and not of strength to Japan. For thousands of Japanese troops are still required for the pacification of Manchukuo, and the railway from Moukden to Shanhaikuan is still only a single line.,