The Japanese North China Measures Committee has arrived at the adoption of funda mental principles which will govern all economic development in North China, a Reuter message from Tokyo reports, and anxiety will be felt in the statement that the plan will probably be extended to Central China if opportunity offers. Under eight headings a scheme has been prepared which provides for the exploitation of the area at present under control, and is so designed as to bring about as complete an economic domination of that area as the Japanese have achieved in Manchoukuo. Indeed, as time progresses, the conviction is confirmed that the reader has only to remember what has happened in that country to realize exactly what the future has in store for the new autonomous state south of the Great Wall. It is planned to secure effective control of all essential industries of North China, and the scheme is far-reaching enough to embrace railways, harbour and port construction, construction of highways, general transportation facilities, telephone and telegraph systems, the electric power industry, and mining, for coal, iron and gold. Spinning, cotton growing and all similar industries are to be free to private concerns The establishment of a complete economic hegemony, and no less, is contemplated by the originators of the pla that has been published, and if opportunity offers this may be extended to Central China. The possibility of its being extended to all areas that ultimately fall into the possession of the Japanese must not be disregarded, nor the likelihood of the greater part of China passing under the economic domination of Japan, as completely as has Manchoukuo. The Committee responsible for the scheme has disappointed certain powerful Japanese interests in arriving at the decision it has, but it adopts the view that political circumstances in North China are entirely different from those prevailing in Manchoukuo, and, therefore, the two companies primarily operating in the latter should not expect to take an important part in the task of developing the former.
The scheme is all the more interesting when its magnitude and its possibilities are contrasted with the words of so eminent a Japanese business man as Mr. Yosuke Matsuoka, President of the South Manchurian Railway Co..—
"Nippon is fighting for loot and profit!" That is the refrain of all anti-Nippon propaganda the world over, It is an insult to plain arithmetic. Nippon has already spent billions of yen in the present crisis. The Imperial Diet a couple of weeks ago voted for more than two billion yen just to tide over a few months, The final total may reach fifty billions or more: who knows? Can a financial optimist anywhere conceive of Nippon getting back even two, three billion yen a year from China? And that amount would be a meagre annual interest charge on the Nippon outlay for this present crisis. Absurd even to a primary school arithmetic class all this fight for loot theory..........
men's lives—ail are offerings on the altar of Billions of yen, thousands of her young her own conviction and aspirations, She is simply footing the bill which the leadership of Asian races calls for. No treasure trove is in her eyes—only sacrifices. No one realizes this more than she does, But the very life of her own depends on it as those of her neighbours as well The all-absorbing question before Nippon to-day, therefore is: Can she bear the cross?
That Mr. Matsuoka believes what he has written there cannot be the slightest doubt, nor can there be any that this is the belief held by millions of Japanese who are impressed with the sacredness of their mission in China. It is quite possible that people holding such views will regard the plan put forward by the North China Measures Committee, as being merely another example of the altruism which Mr. Matsuoka claims is animating his country. Those, however, who are concerned more with plain facts than mere words will find a very great discrepancy between the two in this case, and will be unable to escape the only apparent conclusion, that if this China Incident is not a war for economic conquest, it looks uncommonly like it It is but natural that foreign interests will watch this new Japanese plan with great concern. Foreign investment in China at the end of 1931, according to Professor C. F. Romer, totalled U.S. $3,242,500,000 of which the Japanese accounted for U.S. $1,136,- 900,000. Great Britain's share amounted to U.S. $1,189,200,000 of which approximately only. one-quarter was in government loans, so that $963,400,000 or about £200,000,000 represents other British investments in China at that time, making it reasonable to suppose that since the year in question the total has increased, What is to happen to those investments under such a scheme as has been put forward? It will be argued readily agree with such a contention is only too apparent from the concern displayed over the way in which the doctrine has been adhered to in Manchoukuo, in connection with which the same promise was made. The recent inclusion of that country within the Japanese economic bloc, and the restrictions which have but lately been placed upon the foreign trade of that entity is an indication of what may be expected to happen in the future. It may very well be argued for Japan that this present expedient is but a temporary measure, but it is an unfortunate fact that Japanese temporary measures have an unhappy habit of acquiring' permanency, and should it do so in this case, the application of similar tactics to North China, and Central China might very well be the severest possible blow to foreign interests in this part of the world. Despit the reassuring eloquence of Mr. Matsuoka it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the creation of this monster monopoly in the new autonomous state is the first step in the endeavour to make Japan's present military adventure a paying one.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.