The Manchurian Crisis

LIEUT.-COLONEL GEORGE A. DREW PRESIDENT, introduced the speaker.

HON. MR. MASSEY: Canada needs no argument to show that the situation in Manchuria is one to command her active interest. No disturbance as grave as this, and which affects in its immediate proximity one-third of the population of the world, can very well be isolated. As a matter of fact we have not forgotten the lesson which we learned in 1914 of what an obscure crime in a Balkan state can mean. We are therefore not unmindful of what events may flow from the destruction of a few metres of railway line four months ago at an unknown place in Manchuria-the Balkans of Asia.

We may well be conscious of an added reason for concerning ourselves with this latter question. We belong to an international body whose duty it is to consider just such things, and the Council of the League of Nations represents the board of directors of a corporation of which we are shareholders and for whose actions we have a full share of responsibility. Again, it is for us, with the full obligation of nationhood, to arrive at an independent opinion as to whether the terms of the Treaty of Washington of 1922, which enjoins its signatories, amongst other things, "to respect the sovereignty, the independence and the territorial and administrative integrity of China", have been infringed. We must decide for ourselves, too, whether either party to this present dispute has violated the terms of the Pact of

Paris, which rules that the "settlement or solution of all disputes .... shall never be except by pacific means". It is hard to reconcile some recent occurrences with this provision.

Again, our trade with the Orient is now of sufficient volume to make us watch Manchuria with an increasingly anxious eye. I have heard it maintained recently that the Far Eastern crisis is actually assisting us through the goods which China is now ordering from Canada instead of from Japan, with which country she has, for the time being, refused to trade. It is no doubt true that we are enjoying a temporary advantage for this reason, but I think you will agree that for the few thousand dollars' worth of trade which this may temporarily bring us, we are likely to lose tens and scores of thousands in the loss of purchasing power suffered by that very promising customer of ours, Japan, as a result of this same boycott.

The incident of September 18th last, when the Japanese General Staff took it on itself to administer the "sharp lesson", which for some time they had been itching to apply to the Chinese, is, as we know, only one new page in a melancholy chapter of trouble of which Manchuria has been the cause for half a century. This area has come to be one of the world's great friction points--I was going to say one of the world's two great friction points, because there seem to be two regions, one in Europe and one in Asia, which offer a perpetual menace to international peace-the former lying near the eastern frontier of Germany, where the Polish corridor was made to sever German territory. There is an analogy between the two. Leaving the rights and wrongs of the matter to one side, they each of them represent a situation created and maintained by force, where the only answer to force on the part of the weaker party is a bitter and smouldering resentment and a constantly threatening restlessness.

It may be useful to turn from the recent events for a moment and direct our attention to the real Manchurian problem which lies behind them. What arguments does each disputant bring to the issue? Japan's case is impressive. First of all comes the argument of economic necessity. You are familiar with the facts. Japan is faced with the twin problems of growing population and inadequate food supply. The solution can only come from a steady process of industrialization. Manchuria provides what she urgently needs for this purpose-raw materials and markets. Japan, for instance, produces only one-twentieth of the iron ore which she uses. This and the coal on which her industrial life depends, and the fertilizer which is needed for her ancient fields, and fuel oil and even food stuffs must be imported in increasing quantities-and Manchuria supplies them, just as it supplies markets for the great factories of Osaka and Nagoya. It is no wonder that the trade of Japan with Manchuria should have increased in the last twenty years twelve-fold until now to judge from trade figures, the Manchurian provinces are economically more important to Japan than they are even to China proper. More than half their external trade is with the Japanese Empire.

Then there is the argument of "blood and treasure". You have only to hear a Japanese speak of the seige [sic] of Port Arthur, although it is now nearly a generation away, to realize what this means to national pride. What Vimy Ridge meant to the Canadian Corps, Port Arthur meant to Japan. Japan's achievements in Manchuria began with a great adventure which marked her accession to full national stature. Her pride in this is a powerful element in the present crisis. She has paid a vast price in money as well as in men. There is no doubt whatever of the treasure which has been poured into Manchuria. In twenty-five years it is estimated that Japan and the Japanese have invested one thousand million dollars gold in the development of Manchurian industry and agriculture.

The Japanese make much of their legal claims in Manchuria. Elaborate and convincing statements are made as to the documentary grounds on which they base their present policy. The control of the South Manchurian Railway and its subsidiaries and the extension of its lease and that of Dairen and Port Arthur, the maintenance of Japanese troops and police in Manchuria, Japan's protests against the construction of competing Chinese railways, her exercise of mining rights-all these contentions have a technical legal basis in various conventions and agreements.

Practical people, such as we Canadians are, cannot -help being impressed, by the argument of efficiency which appeals to us perhaps more strongly than the brief s of international lawyers. Japan's twenty-five years in Manchuria is an engrossing story of business achievement. The railway of which we hear so much may sound like a transportation system and nothing more. (It operates, as a matter of fact, only some 700 miles of line, although with admirable efficiency.) But when we remember its coal and iron, mines, shale oil works, gas and electric plants, blast furnaces, research laboratories, geological institutions, hospitals, schools, hotels and even model farms and agricultural experimental stations-all operated by the railwaywe can accept it as one of the most striking business enterprises in the world. We can understand why the earnings of the South Manchurian Railway should be greater than all the Chinese lines put together, or how Dairen has now become the second port in China-the greatest next to Shanghai. Japan's aim in all this effort is naturally to benefit Japan, but the Japanese can claim quite rightly that the Chinese share in the resultant blessings. The versatile soya bean, for instance, which Manchuria produces may now feed millions of the Japanese population, but their cultivation means works for other millions of Chinese farmers and a market for their product. Again, Japan can say with justice that the Chinese population of these Manchurian provinces have gained immeasurably by the law and ,order which she has instituted, and the' effort she has put forward in the name of efficient administration.

Perhaps this may seem like the answer to the Manchurian riddle. We may be tempted to say, if a power is willing to bestow economic prosperity in this troubled region why should we inquire too closely into the grounds for its presence or the methods by which its tenure is secured? angerous precedent this would be, however, for economics do not tell the whole story. In the last analysis there are other elements in international affairs, sometimes even more powerful. Racial pride is one. I remember a conversation a few weeks ago in China when a Japanese friend was stating the case for Japan in Manchuria, and touched on the victory over Russia in 1905-6. A Chinese said to the Japanese: "your sentimental plea dates back for twenty-five years; ours goes back for three centuries." This was characteristic of the Chinese, who think of centuries as we think of weeks. The Manchu emperors may have been. dethroned in China for twenty years, but the Chinese look on Manchuria-the cradle of the dynasty-as essentially theirs. It has been reported that the young gentleman whose former greatness is now masked under the name of Mr. Henry Pu Yi, is now back in the home of his ancestors in Mukden. I had the pleasure of having a talk with the "Young Emperor", as his friends still call the last of the Manchus, at his home in Tientsin, a few. weeks ago. Had he been a little longer on the Chinese throne before his abdication it is just possible that his intelligence and honesty of mind might have changed the course of history.

However, that is a digression. To continue with the Chinese case. Whatever we may think about China's sentiment for Manchuria at the present time, we must realize that we are faced, not with a theory, but with a fact. Any one who has been in China in the last few months will agree that the racial feeling evoked by the Manchurian crisis is strong enough to move Chinese all over that disunited country to face the situation as one man. They are bitter, resentful and determined that they will not submit to the violation of what they regard as their sovereignty. Apart from the presence in these three Eastern provinces of China-as the Chinese prefer to call Manchuriaof thousands of Japanese troops, it is difficult for her to be persuaded that Japan has not in mind a fate for this region similar to that which befell Korea which, as you know, is a Japanese dependency. The South Manchuria railway they refuse to regard as a bona fide commercial enterprise. They look on it rather as the entering wedge for the political domination of their Eastern provinces. In this connection the Chinese cannot understand why Japan will not permit the growing population of Korean immigrants in Manchuria to become Chinese citizens, although she permits her subjects to assume alien citizenship in every other country. The Japanese argue that these Koreans in Manchuria too often act as agents for anti-Japanese plots in Korea itself-as they do. But this leaves the Chinese unmoved. China steadfastly maintains that Manchuria is Chinese. Of its population of some thirty millions, all but two or three millions have come from China, less than a million from Korea and only some 200,000 from Japan itself. The gross immigration from neighbouring Chinese provinces to Manchuria in the last few years has been over one million per annum. This represents, as a matter of fact, the greatest migratory movement in modem history, and there is still room for plenty of settlers, for it is estimated that Manchuria can support over twice her present population.

Japan claims that just as twenty-five years ago she checked the expansion of imperialistic Russia, she now provides the eastern barrier to the ambitions of the Soviets. But the Chinese say in answer to this claim that the most imminent danger from Russia is not Russian bayonets but bolshevistic ideas. The present aim of Russia is not the acquisition of Chinese territory through any overt act, but rather the conquest of Chinese minds through propaganda. Chinese have told me that during these weeks of disillusionment through which the nationally-conscious Chinese are passing, the temptation to turn to Bolshevism, despite the efforts of the Government on the other side, is becoming almost irresistible. Bolshevism, it must be remembered, is a disease which feeds on misery and despair. The danger of Moscow being involved in the present crisis in a military sense, is, I would suggest, extremely remote, and it is unlikely that the individualistic Chinese would ever accept communistic principles, but Bolshevism in its destructive sense may still find strong outposts in China to serve as a new threat to the world outside. There is every reason to believe that Moscow is entirely satisfied with the course of events in Manchuria. The Chinese answer to the legal claims of the Japanese has been made plain enough in the last few weeks. China, as I have said, denies their validity. Japan may base the extension of her leases on a treaty signed by China; they may offer the same grounds for many privileges such as the right of their nationals to lease land and engage in agriculture, the right of maintaining consular police and exercising consular jurisdiction over Japanese subjects in the interior, but the agreements in question, the Chinese point out, were presented, as the world of course knows they were, in the form of an ultimatum in 1915 and signed under pressure. For this reason, China repudiates them as having no moral sanction and celebrates the anniversary of their signature as a day of national humiliation.

So much for the major arguments on both sides. It is not a case of right against wrong--whichever side you take-but rather right against right--a conflict of different kinds of right conceived by different kinds of mind. In every dispute, of course, there are factors often overlooked, which have their own significance. One element in the Manchurian problem has recently been discussed by a distinguished Japanese, who criticizes the policy of the South Manchurian Railway, with great frankness. He disapproves, for instance, of its unwillingness to employ Chinese, apart from rare instances, except in manual labour. He criticizes such petty and irritating practices as that of changing Chinese street names in Manchurian towns to Japanese, and deplores the actual discrimination of the railway authorities under certain conditions against Chinese passengers, and their refusal to carry Chinese troops in the movement against Russia two years ago. These things may sound trivial, but they have their own bearing on the problem. Human nature being as it is, such discrimination against the Chinese on what they regard as their own soil, probably chafes more harshly on the individuals even than the presence of foreign police or consular courtsirritating although these are. It cannot, of course, be said that China's answer to this has taken the most helpful form. The Chinese side of the case has too often been in the hands of irresponsible and lawless people and, as we know, Japan has been subject to an exasperating policy of pin-pricks from which both personal safety and the rights of property have seriously suffered. Banditry and sabotage in Manchuria have long been a curse. When one considers, however, that the Nationalist Government established itself at Nanking and commenced its task of governing 400 million people (a population as big as that of Europe), only three years ago, it is not to be wondered at that outlying provinces should still suffer from disorders.

The Manchurian problem, of course, bristles with difficulties. The very railway map of Manchuria seems to give a depressing enough picture of conflicting national aims, with Chinese railways, Japanese railways, Sino-Japanese railways and SinoRussian railways, all in desperate competition. The map itself, however, suggests two facts to brighten the scene. First, none of the national units represented desires war-that is of the first magnitude. The finances of none could stand the strain. As for Russia, she is far too occupied with her great plan of industrialization to risk it on such an adventure, and the best judgment of both Japan and China, I am convinced, is against such a measure. Secondly, these politically-minded railways are all needed for an ,economic job. Manchuria is rich enough and big enough to carry them all in, a co-ordinated plan which should be possible to achieve when the emotional clouds have lifted.

But these clouds have not yet lifted. Chinese official policy has been largely negative-to offer no resistance and to appeal to the League quite properly under an article which exists for just such a purpose. But the national boycott against Japan (for which the government has no responsibility) represents, so I was informed, the most widespread and vindictive use of this familiar Chinese weapon within the memory of living residents. The boycott committees are well organized, intimidation .against those who break the rules is freely practised and while I was in Shanghai several merchants who had offended the boycott committee were kidnapped and placed in the precincts of a temple. In this building, inappropriately known as the "Temple of the Goddess of Heaven", they languished for many days.

The depth of feeling is patent to any visitor. The face of China seems covered with posters, either printed. or improvised locally, depicting the sins of the Japanese in Manchuria in the most sanguinary form. It seemed to me as if few spaces on the. walls of buildings or on railway trains were left untouched by some such evidence of national ardour. Bands of students would invade railway carriages to enlist the aid of Chinese and the sympathy of the foreigner alike in the national cause. On the steps of Sun Yat Sen's tomb in Nanking we saw written in blood the pledges of students to avenge the wrongs of China. Educationists told us that the student body, always an intemperate element in the Chinese population, had never been so moved as now. We saw them parading in their thousands for the purpose of demanding war. One Chinese college head, with infinite wisdom, said that when the strong wine of nationalism had so mounted to the heads of his students that they wished to move straight off to fight Japan, he suggested three or four hours of hard drill a day by way of preparation. This he found had a sobering effect. But unfortunately, there seems to be little to check the rising fury of the student world of China and the increasingly large urban population which shares their excitement. There is every reason to believe that the Chinese Government is doing all in its power to urge moderation and restraint. When some of us visited the President, General Chiang Kai-shek, in Nanking, there were several Japanese members in our party. These, in addition to the heavy military protection which their presence made necessary, were treated with every consideration. Offending posters. were removed before their arrival, and the President himself went out of his way to treat them with especial courtesy. The President too has made several courageous efforts to moderate the popular feeling.

What am I to say of the status quo of Manchuria at present? For the moment there appears to be quiet in the Manchurian theatre-a quiet which has followed the march of Japanese troops. Japan is now in complete control of all three Manchurian provinces. This she has accomplished by the application of the ancient method of force. And whatever the provocation may have been, and we can agree that it was considerable, she cannot escape the charge of having violated solemn intemational engagements in doing what she has done.

Questions of first importance are suggested by the relations between the League of Nations and the Government of Japan in the Manchurian issue. It may clarify our thinking if we consider for a moment the various approaches which the League has in its power to make to an international situation. These are, roughly, three in number. First, the League itself can apply force. Under the provisions of Article 16 of the Covenant, as everyone knows, a recalcitrant power can be placed under economic pressure from its fellow members. Such a course in the present instance would, in my opinion, be unwise and unsound. The League is not a super-state; it does not exist to function as a piece of coercive machinery. It can exist only as a voluntary association of sovereign states. If its authority even to investigate an international question submitted to its Council is challenged, as Japan has challenged it recently, it does not require much political imagination to realize the threat to its solidarity which would follow the exercise of economic sanctions. There is little use in attempting a course of action against a member state which might well lead to its withdrawal from this voluntary association. There is, therefore, a practical reason against such a course of action, quite apart from the belief of most of us that force in international affairs has rarely solved anything. It has usually only created a new set of difficulties.

In the machinery of the League are two other methods of dealing with such a situation as we have in Manchuria. One of these, arbitration, we could dismiss at present as impossible. There are too many elements on both sides which the disputants would regard as political--matters not justiciable and not to be submitted to a court. The preparation of the terms of reference would be as difficult as the settlement of the dispute itself.

There is a third approach open to the League which, in the present issue, the Council has endeavoured to pursue the process of conciliation. It has, of course, become fashionable to regard the League in this episode as a rather futile and well-intentioned body which has spent four laborious months in the painful and widely advertised accomplishment of nothing at all. This view, I would suggest, is not fair. I think it is clear that in the first six weeks of the issue at least, the League operated as a check on both sides in the Manchurian theatre. On the other hand, an attitude of extreme eulogy with reference to the League is, in any circumstances, just as unwise as that of unthinking criticism. One cannot, of ,course, ever accept the League's actions as infallible simply because it stands for a noble ideal. Idealism and mistaken judgment are, unfortunately, now and then seen in company.

The League has made, I would suggest, one serious error in the present crisis, in demanding last October the withdrawal of Japanese troops by a given. date. This order undoubtedly consolidated Japanese opinion behind the war party, and is probably partly responsible for the replacement, a few weeks ago, of the late government by (one of less moderate policy. When an order such as the one delivered to Japan can be supported with force,, there is less need to be careful not to cause offence to the nation involved. Its assent, in such a case, is not required. Even the process of arbitration carries legal sanctions, but conciliation and arbitration are two different things. Conciliation involves no sanctions of any kind and is successful only if the good will and co-operation of both parties is secured. In the case in point between the League and Japan, this principle does not seem to have been observed. It would seem to be a matter of common sense that when you are attempting to arrive at a settlement with any person, or any group of persons, that you should endeavour to cause as little embarrassment to the other party as possible and that you should do what you can to save him from the humiliating position of "losing face". This involves an intelligent endeavour to appreciate and understand his point of view and also an intimate contact with the "atmosphere" of the situation involved and also the avoidance of publicity during the conversations. (The process of conciliation is not greatly helped by conversation through a megaphone.) These factors in the case in point seem to have been disregarded.

Much of the difficulty was due to the distance involved. I have already ventured the suggestion that had the Council of the League, or a committee of its members of cabinet rank, paid the eastern powers the compliment of holding their meetings on this all-important issue in Tokyo and Nanking and Mukden, there might have been a better chance of arriving at a sound judgment and of carrying the confidence of the governments involved.

(Applause). Geneva and Paris are, after all, some eight thousand miles away from these Oriental communities, and when an exchange of views on highly delicate subjects is effected through cables which must be put into cypher and then decoded and translated and passed through half a dozen hands, one is apt to have left nothing but the bare, uncomprising [sic] facts. Personal touch and a knowledge of the atmosphere which cannot be transmitted by mechanical means, are, in such cases, essential to success.

There are plenty of liberal-minded Japanese--I had the pleasure of meeting a good many of them both in Shanghai and Tokyo--whose attitude to the League is enlightened and cooperative, but, unfortunately, as the weeks passed and the Council of the League seemed to the Japanese people both remote and unsympathetic, Japan seemed to fall more and more under the influence of the military party, who are pleased to regard the League of Nations as an unlicensed intruder. And, under its new government, Japan has revealed a definite resentment of outside interference in the Manchurian issue as being a private quarrel. But no international dispute can any longer be a private quarrel, and there surely should be no question of the propriety of the League's investigation of any international situation of sufficient gravity to bereferred to it under one of the articles of the Covenant.. The fact that on this occasion one of the disputants apparently resents its good offices as an intrusion only serves to show that the ideals of the League are still in advance of the claims of nationalism. In Manchuria today we have something more significant than a conflict between the Chinese people and the Japanese government. We have a collision between twentieth century international machinery and a nineteenth century point of view. The world has accepted, in theory at least, certain principles for the settlement of international disputes and we no longer live in a prewar era in which there was nothing to check national action but the opposing self-interest of rivals. It is no doubt a source of irritation to the Japan these general staff to have it said that their action in Manchuria is not a domestic mat-ter but one of concern to the society of nations as a whole. It is, nevertheless, of vital importance that in the settlement of the present issue, that principle should be stoutly upheld.

May I suggest that, however ineffective it may have been in this controversy, we must not lose faith in the League. Our course should be rather to give it to the utmost our intelligent support. For the Council, as a committee of governments, can be no stronger than public opinion among the peoples which those governments represent. It is too early yet to judge the League. Statesmanship at Geneva can still assert itself. The test will come with the report of the commission which is shortly to assemble and with what measure of acceptance that report can receive. The status quo in Manchuria at the moment has been won by the sword. If the principles for which the League stands are to be vindicated, this status quo must either be justified or modified in accordance with reason and justice.

It is greatly to, be hoped that the League's commission will be satisfied with no superficial approach to existing difficulties. Whether it is within their terms of reference or not, the world requires a complete liquidation of the Manchurian situation and basic reconstruction of relationships with the essentials safeguarded on both sides. It should not be an insoluble problem to ascertain what those essentials are. Both sides must, of course, make concessions. Wise opinion in Japan has no thought of Manchuria except in terms of economics; Japanese investments must be adequately protected. Wise opinion in China has no wish that these should be jeopardized, and desires only that Chinese sovereign rights shall not be infringed. The two pillars of any permanent settlement must therefore be the protection of Japanese commercial enterprise, on the one hand, and the safeguarding of China's sovereignty on the other.

No problem is insoluble, but problems can easily be given a wrong solution. Whatever is done in Manchuria can only have a lasting effect if it is done with the free and uncoerced assent of both parties. This need not be urged on idealistic grounds alone. There is a moral side to such a question, of course, but I submit that it is also very practical common sense. A peace which is readily accepted is more likely to be kept. Let us hope that who ever the man may be who must ultimately deal with the Manchurian question they will make a job of it. The world, Canada as part of it, will stand to profit greatly from such an achievement. (Hear, hear, and loud and continued applause).

The President expressed the hearty thanks of the Club to the speaker for his able exposition of a difficult subject, on which he had spoken from personal observation of the problems on the spot.