PERFECT CRIME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 June 1940, Page 2

PERFECT CRIME

DEBAUCHING A NATION

JAPANESE METHODS IN CHINA. NARCOTICS THE SPEARHEAD OF ATTACK. Narcotics, opium morphine and heroin—are the spearhead of the Japanese military invasion of China. I am not talking about the surreptitious traffic in drugs which is an old story in other lands. I mean, the Japanese army’s systematic use of dope as a military weapon, writes Carl Crow, long-time resident of Shanghai in “Scribner’s Commentator.” Advance guards of dope peddlers debauch populations. particularly young men of fighting age, to pave the way for army victories. Special agents plot to make addicts of Chinese who are or might become leaders dangerous to the conquerors. Battalions of dope peddlers come in with the troops, to keep 11 e people enslaved—and to make money. And the drug traffic- helps finance the Japanese army.

"Pestilence and war historically go together,” said Lieut-Commander Reginald Fletcher to the House of Commons, “but it has been left to the Japanese to find a way in which to make pestilence pay for war.”

These charges are fully substantiated. Every “old Chinese hand” like myself tells the same sickening story. A constantly increasing docket of official reports piles up the indictment. The damning evidence is to be found on file with the League of Nations, the Institute of Pacific Relations, our own State and Treasury Departments, the Navy Department, the British consular service; and in hundreds of letters from missionaries to their headquarters here. All agree on the main outlines; each adds specific detail or verified statistics.

Production of opium, heroin and morphine is increased in Japanese-con-trolled territoy, notably in Manchukuo. Thousands of dope peddlers work under military direction. To every protest Japan turns a deaf ear. She is self-convicted of knowing perfectly well what she is doing. Japanese laws against drug addiction —by Japanese —are the strictest in the world, and the best enforced. Mere possession of an opium pipe, for example. is good for seven years at hard labour. And a pamphlet distributed to all Japanese soldiers contains this paragraph: “The use of narcotics is unworthy of a s .iperior race like the Japanese. Only inferior races that are decadent like the Chinese, Europeans and the East Indians are addicted to the use of narcotics. This is why they are destined to become our slaves and eventually disappear.” The Samurai have acquired a new sword. The Japanese fitst grasped the potentialities of narcotics as an agency of conquest when they took over Manchukuo. Opium-smoking regiments of the Manchurian army fled or surrendered without resistance. Thereupon the Japanese army embarked on a programme to prepare North China for conquest by the use of narcotics. The army and the Japanese diplomats smoothed the way for the Korean peddlers who were sent in. At home a Korean has no civil rights; the lowest Japanese can slap a Korean aristocrat with impunity. But when the scum of’ Seoul came into China and started peddling dope, they became important representatives of the Empire. If arrested by the Chinese police, the Japanese police forcibly released them. If by chance they did come before a Japanese judge, they were fined a trivial sum —a fraction of the profit on one suitcase full of dope. There had to be arsenals for this new munitions of war, so the drugs were stored in Japanese consulates where Chinese officials could not pry.. In North China, General Kai-Shek’s customs guards found, it a waste of time to arrest these Korean smugglers; the Japanese courts would release them. But they could seize the nar-: cctics. The Koreans then began travelling in armed bands, sometimes ac-' ccmpanied by Japanese soldiers or police. The customs guards 'also organised, and there were clashes. Many of the peddlers refused to go on with their work, until the Japanese army brought pressure to bear on the Japanese foreign office which in turn bore down on the Chinese Government. Since China then was doing everything possible to postpone the inevitable conflict, the customs guards were disarmed and reduced in number. Dope peddling entered upon a new boom.

In the guise of travelling doctors, the peddlers sold pills guaranteed to cure all diseases. They were heroin. But young men, potential soldiers for China were healthy and did not buy pills. So the Japanese introduced a new brand of cigarettes, loaded with heroin, priced to compete with the cheapest on the Chinese market. The cigarettes made addicts by thousands. Japanese salesmen gave away samples, made cut-price introductory offers. The peddlers did their work well, for Japanese troops marched through North China practically unopposed. One Chinese commander explained the loss of an important battle by saying that the weather was rainy and his troops could not light the doped cigarettes without which they were helpless.

As the Japanese armies have pushed from Peiping and Tientsin to the south, and from Shanghai to the west, they have followed the procedure developed in Manchuria. As soon as they come into control of a place, they establish an opium monopoly, revoke anti-narcotic laws, and release all prisoners held on narcotic charges. Thus all China under Japanese control has been flooded with narcotics—sold as openly as soap or kerosene. Every old American resident of Shanghai. Canton. Peiping. Soochow, Nanking and Hankow has been horrified by the Scourge. The programme of poisoning has probably been most successful in Nanking. Three years ago Nanking was as tree from narcotics as any city in the United States. Under Chinese rule it had been impossible to purchase any narcotic without a physician's prescription. But the Japanese army began the open sale of opium, morphine and heroin even before the orgy of looting and raping had ceased.

Early in 1939 a survey conducted by British and American residents showed that 50.000 people in Nanking—an eighth of the population—were drug addicts. The most recent report estimates addicts at from one fourth to one third of the population. The Nanking Opium monopoly, which calls itself “the Opium Suppression Bureau," does a business of 5.000.000 Chinese dollars a month. This sum would feed, clothe and shelter 200.000 people. In Peiping there are 500 shops deal-

ing in narcotics, outnumbering those in any other line of business. The quiet little street on which I lived in Shanghai three years ago is now surrounded by opium dens and drug shops. Profits meet a large part of public expenses, but the profits do not all go into official treasuries. The entire army is honeycombed with opium graft. Officers in higher ranks spend more than their salaries on sake and geishas; those in lower ranks luxuriate with beer and Korean prostitutes. While poisoning the people of China for military purposes, Japanese officers are meeting their own expenses, and even getting rich, out of the drug traffic. A recent controversy between the army and the navy over control of the opium business in Shanghai resulted in a compromise whereby the army gets the major portion of the swag. Opium and the finished drugs as well are moved as army stores.

Year after year the Narcotics Advisory Committee of the League of Nations has called the attention of the Japanese Government to the flood of illicit drugs for which it was responsible. The only response has been a promise to. investigate. The Manchukuo budget for 1939 estimated the revenue from opium at 71.000,000 yen. an increase of 24,000.OOOyen over 1938. But after a few months the officials announced that the revenue would exceed 90,000,000 yen. For some time the revenue from opium provided by the customs, and if the present rate, of increase continues it may take first place. Manchukuo appropriately decorates its bank notes with the poppy flower.

The average annual production of Korea used to be about one ton. This jumped to five tons in 1931, to seven tons in 1932. to 14 tons in 1933. In 1937. with new demands occasioned by the use of opium in the China campaign, it was almost 30 tons. The annual exportation of opium from Persia from 1928 to 1934 inclusive averaged about 500 tons. In 1935 the Japanese army became an important purchaser, and exports of Persian opium jumped to a new high of 833 tons, increased again in 1936 to the amazing total of 1346 tons. Some ot this Persian opium was carried in ships Hying the Japanese army transport flag and was consigned directly to the army. The guilt of Japan is so complete that it might be said to constitute the perfect crime. It has been committed not by individuals but by a nation. The army, the navy, the foreign office, have all been involved. While there have been arguments in Japan about other phases of the war in China there has been none about this one. The Japanese newspapers have been silent and so have the Japanese priests. . . The Japanese cannot, officially oi unofficially, deny the truth of the facts I have presented. They will simply remain silent. The narcotic war is too profitable and too important to the army—both for victory now, and thereafter to maintain a debauched people in slavery to the conqueror.