THE JAPANESE IN SHANGHAI

Commonwealth and Foreign

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]

Sia,—The .International Settlement in Shanghai possesses two public parks, but one of them, Hongkew, on the northern boundary, is rapidly becoming practically a Japanese preserve. Outside is the new concrete fortress which serves as a barracks for Japanese troops, and inside those troops, from early morn until noon at least, are drilling and manoeuvring, often to the great inconvenience of other users of the park. They overrun the whole of its wide extent with their eternal open-order practices, and the constant barking of words of command turns what should be a quiet pleasaunce into a parade-ground.

Not perhaps that this worries the majority of its frequenters nowadays. These become increasingly Japanese in nationality. Serpentines of Japanese school children parade round its paths, and parties of them monopolise the cinder-track and jumping-pit. One section has been converted into a baseball ground with stand for the benefit of the local Japanese athletic association. Family parties stroll over the grass ; father and little Jim San in front and mother, with the latest arrival on her back, a pace or two in the rear. Japanese would-be artists plank themselves down on their camp-stools to execute their customary highly coloured daubs, and the fishermen on the banks of the two small lakes are mostly Japanese.

This is symptomatic of what is happening in the Hongkew district as a whole. This portion of the Settlement has in recent years become practically a Japanese enclave, with the Japanese claiming and asserting special rights therein. The vast majority of the 30,000 local Japanese have settled here, and these have made it into what is to all intents and purposes a Japanese city in-miniature ; so much so, indeed, that its local nickname is " Little Tokyo." There are whole streets lined with Japanese shops displaying Japanese goods. Everywhere are Japanese advertisements. The •" obi " and " kimono " are as common as the Chinese gown, and the. Japanese 11- n page is as frequently heard as Chinese or English. The houses, it is true, are foreign in style, but they are floored with " tatami " and furnished with Japanese furniture. There are Japanese restaurants and food shops where Japanese food is to be obtained ; one section of the city's main market, situated near by, is given over entirely to Japanese stall- holders. There are Japanese cinemas displaying Japanese films, and the four thousand children attend one or other of the seven schools maintained by the Japanese community, where they receive the same education as they would in their h mite country.

The Japanese community is very thoroughly and purpose- fully organised. Every householder has to be a member of the Japanese Residents Corporation to which he pays what amounts to taxes on his land and property. Amusement resorts, such as cafes, cinemas, tea gardens and beer halls, have, in addition to obtaining licences from the Municipal Council, to pay licence fees to their local national authorities. Recalcitrant individuals are brought into. line by recourse

to the Japanese consular court. The executive head of the Residents Corporation is a president elected for four years, and there is a general council of forty elected for two years by the 5,000 members. The corporation, which receives and spends nearly $800,000 a year, maintains the schools, a clinic, a crematorium, its own fire stations, and undertakes public works for the benefit of the Japanese community.,

It also decides who shall be the Japanese candidates for the Municipal Council, lays down their policy, and instructs the 800 of its members, who happen also to be municipal electors,

how to vote so as to secure their election. The Japanese vote at municipal elections is most carefully- organised and

disciplined. The individual voter may be, in theory, free and independent ; in practice, if he is a Japanese, he does as his leaders tell him.

The Corporation is the normal mouthpiece of the Japanese community, but recently it has abdicated more often than not in favour of another body, the Amalgamated Association of Japanese Streets Unions. The street union is, as its name implies, an association of neighbours for common purposes.

Originally these were mainly social, the stress now is on politics. When the Japanese wish to speak as a body on

questions of a political or semi-political nature, when they wish to approach any of the local governing bodies to conduct negotiations with the public utility 'companies, or to -pass public resolutions, it is through the Streets Unions' Association that they usually do so today. The semi-official character of the Residents Corporation might lead to diplomatic embarl rassments, if it were made the body of protest or negotiation.

The Japanese, enjoying extra-territorial rights, are -stibject to the Japanese consular court, which maintains a small body of gendarmerie to enforce its deciSions. At the same tittle Hongkew is constantly patrolled by pickets of Japanese marines and the Japanese military are ready; one had almost written anxious, to' turn out at a moment's notice to assist " the settlement police in the task of maintaining order. A Chinese boy on the roof of a house throws a stone at a cat and the stone accidentally rebounds off a wall and drops on the shoulder of a Japanese marine. Immediately the Japanese military are on the spot, a foreign police inspector has to be summoned, and an utterly trivial occurrence is magnified out of all proportion by this unjustifiable military interference in the management of the district. At frequent intervals, too; the Japanese parade their troops through the streets, on one occasion practically " occupying " the area for the purpose of their manoeuvres. Hongkew, in fact, is almost a State within

a State, with its own taxation, soldiery, police and system of . , government.

Of the fifty different nationalities which go to make up foreign population of the international settlement the Japanese alone have so definitely made for themselves a special racial quarter, have so deliberately and thoroughly organised them- selves as a separate entity apart from and almost, at times, in opposition to all the others. It is a development which goes altogether contrary to the international conception of the settlement, and threatens to break up the spirit of inter- ' national co-operation which has so far distinguished Its administration. The nationals of other nations, in "partientor the British and the Ameiricans; are already being &Wen to" organise themselves also on national lines; and- national 'cont. ' siderations and prejudices are beghtning to enter into municipal' elections and to threaten the harmonious conduct of nnutibipstl affairs. - The size of the Japanese community and the value and im- portance of its trading interests entitle it to a share in the settlement's administration. No one grudges them that share, but the deliberate organisation of the community along its present lines and the manner in which Hongkew is being converted into a special area where the Japanese military claim equal authority with the municipal douncil is not a healthy portent for the future. The attitude of the Japanese to certain major local problems of recent years has not -been encouraging. Their demands have blocked a satisfactory settlement of the vexed question of jurisdiction on the ".outside roads ; " it is an open secret that it is Japanese not British or American opposition which has led to the necessary consular approval being refused to the agreement upon factory inspec- tion in the settlement recently concluded between the municipal council and the Chinese authorities. - • Without subscribing to the theory held in many quarters that all this is part of a Japanese scheme to get Shanghai into her grip as a prelude to domination of the Yangtse Valley— one is bound to regard the development of this large, compact, localised and highly-organised Japanese community with considerable misgiving. Local British and American senti- ment has come to recognise that rendition must come, though it would not welcome it just now, and is prepared to co-operate when it does. There is no sign of any similar disposition on the part ofthe Japanese. Fot the Chinese the matter must be one of particular concern. The nationalism of Little Tokyo not only defers rendition, but also seems to indicate that there will remain, when the settlement is handed over, a solid core of organised, racial selfishness to embarrass the local authorities and obstruct the smooth and successful working of the new regime.—I am, .Sir, &c:, Youa..SuAtmnat CORRESPONDENT.