MANCHUKUO TODAY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 39, 16 February 1933, Page 11

MANCHUKUO TODAY

BAD NEIGHBOURS.

HOPE OE DEVELOPMENT

JAPAN'S TAPING DREAM

During, the hundred dreadful days that followed September 18,-1931, the educated classes of Manchuria - looked . to' the -League of Nations to "deal with the acute quarrel that had broken out between Japan and. the corrupt Government of China... The Lytton Commission; started late, moved slowly, and seemed to waste time in Shanghai and Pekin., When,the Commission'■:eventually reached its destination its wel-l come was cold and its sojourn com-! paratively. brief. Now; the report; is published, -\vith7 its masterly ; exposure of conditions in.the disputed territory and its practical recommendations for reconstruction, the deliberate tardiness is seen to be justified. A disillusioned Japan r was necessary for a possibility pf compromise. And the last year has seen the Japanese yen depreciate by 50 per cent, and more; it has seen the boycott of Japanese goods carried on throughout. China with- further gigantic losses, writes a Mukden correspondent in the "Manchester Guardian." In Manchuria the guerrilla warfare continues apace and Japan's ruthless reprisals seem to have the opposite effect on the population from that expected. -With all the ports' and frontiers m her hands Japan yet fails to stop the importation of ammunition. The defection of Manchukuo troops ,to the Tobber bands is frequent, and the troops certainly take with them good supplies of ammunition for themselves and their triends. The rebellion in the Barga district is serious since the "rebels" are astrido tho Trans-Siber-ian Railway and the tunnel through thij Hsingkan Mountains is in their hands. '- The country has a semblance of Government, but Japan knows that the Chinese in her employ are disloyal. Although the Japanese army is now paying for transport and goods received and its general behaviour is improved, it will take much to obliterate the memories of the extortion and rapine perpetrated from September, 1931, to June, 1932.

MANOHURIAN COMPETITION.

But for Japan perhaps the most disconcerting factor- in the situation is tha discovery that almost everything produced in Japan can bo made more cheaply in Manchuria. The abundance and cheapness of raw material, coal, iron, and oil, the low initial cost of land, wood, bricks, and so on, together with cheaper labour, combine to create a situation exactly the reverse of that hoped for by Japdn. Japan may use Manchuria as a dumping ground for her excess production, but she will seldom find Manchuria a good normal market. The truth is that Japan needed; Manchuria to provide raw material in war, but the unsuspected ability of Manchuria to compete with Japanese manufactures is typical of the problems «which a peaceful protectorate over Manchuria will have to face. China meanwhile is subdued but alas! not unified. The Government now sees that it is impossible for them to maintain at one and the same time the struggle agajnst Communism in China and tho acute boycott •of Japanese goods. President Chiang declared recently that he considered the Japanese occupation of. Manchuria a less, serious throat to China's welfare

than the Soviet menace in China proper. Today the pro-Japanese "An Fu" clique, of ; evil ocjen, is raising its head again in North China, and it is even hinted that it. has come to ant understanding with Nanking. We may take it, therefore, that China will be prepared to consider favourably the Lytton [proposals; •

Manchuria is conscious that, she is besot with HhTee bad neighbours and fears that if even two of them—China and Japan—are agreed about her rich domains peace in her borders will not bo long maintained. Russia looms large on her geographical horizon, but it figures little in the Lytton Report. That is one great weakness of the report. Japan's militarists have long foreseen and banked on the truth that only when Russia and the United States of America join tho Leaguo of Nations can a permanent solution of the Far Eastern problem be found. Meantime the world, looking askance at Japan's persistence in extending her borders, wonders what great motive is behind th<_se military movements. Japan's attempts to transfer some of her millions to the mainland of Asia seem hopeless. The ingenuity of the Korean rice grower and the industry of the Chinese farmer are surpassed by no one. How can Japanese farmers thrive in Manchuria when they are surrounded by hostile Chinese and Koreans and never knowing the hour when the old enemy Russia will be ready to cross the frontier? The Japanese farmers are poor colonisers. Without the whip of the militarists they would prefer to endure great poverty in their island .kingdom rather than emigrate.