The Manchurians and Their New Deal

Abstract

IN THE Report of the Lytton Commission of Inquiry to the Council of the League of Nations the statement appeared that the Commission, in the course of its investigations, had received over five thousand letters from people residing within Manchuria protesting against the Japanese action. Countering this, the Japanese Government declared it had received many times more letters endorsing the action of Japan. Neither of these statements necessarily meant very much: first, because at the time not all the cards had been dealt in the Manchurian New Deal; and second, because at least ninety-five per cent of the people of Manchuria cannot write letters. But though they are largely illiterate, and though they may have been and may still be politically voiceless, they are not inarticulate. To one who knows their language and can gain their confidence they speak their minds freely and shrewdly. It was with the idea of discovering, so far as possible, just what the New Deal has now, after three years, meant for the people of Manchuria and what they think of it, that the writer of this article went to that country in I934 and spent several months among the people. With a background of a considerable residence in various parts of China and a knowledge of the language of the majority of the people, he talked with hundreds of them: officials of the Manchukuo Government, merchants, contractors, soldiers, policemen, farmers and laborers. The present article is an attempt to give as faithful a picture as possible of the results of that investigation. This article is based on two assumptions: first, that within a fairly well-defined portion of northeastern Asia, which until recently was at least nominally, and for long periods of time actually, under the jurisdiction of the Central Government of China, that Government now no longer exercises jurisdiction; and second, that within this