Note 31 — Chapter XVII

A very remarkable confirmation of these statements is afforded in the latest Japanese decision regarding Manchuria which will be immediately enforced. The experience of the past three years having proved conclusively that the Chinese, in spite of their internal strife, are united to a man in their determination to prevent Japan from tightening her hold on Manchuria and instituting an open Protectorate, the Tokio Government has now drawn up a subtle scheme which it is believed will be effective. A Bill for the unification of administration in South Manchuria has passed the Japanese Cabinet Conference and will soon be formally promulgated. Under the provisions of this Bill, the Manchuria Railway Company will become the actual organ of Japanese administration in South Manchuria; the Japanese Consular Service will be subordinate to the administration of the Railway; and all the powers hitherto vested in the Consular Service, political, commercial, judicial and administrative, will be made part of the organization of the South Manchuria Railway. This is not all. From another Japanese source we learn that a law is about to take effect by which the administration of the South Manchuria Railway will be transferred directly to the control of the Government-General of Korea, thus making the Railway at once an apparently commercial but really political organization. In future the revenues of the South Manchuria Railway are to be paid direct to the Government-General of Korea; and the yearly appropriation for the upkeep and administration of the Railway is to be fixed at Yen 12,000,000. These arrangements, especially the amalgamation of the South Manchuria Railway, are to take effect from the 1st July, 1917, and are an attempt to do in the dark what Japan dares not yet attempt in the open.