~OCIALIST - l -.

OllEGTlONI

FLORIDA ATI.A~T IC UNWERSli"VLI BRARY

q(h ' ()00145U For a loan of £13 millions, British banksand bondholders received back £38 -millionsor 283 .per cent."

'" confess that I see no reason whatever why,

either in act, or in word, or in sympathy, we

should go individually. or internationally, against

Japan in this matter. . .. Who is there among

us to cast the first stone and to say that Japan

ought not to have acted with the object of

creating peace and order in Manchuria and

defending herself against the continual aggression

of vigorous Chinese nationalism? Our whole

policy in India, our whole policy in Egypt, stand

condemned if we condemn Japan."

-The Rt. Han. L. S. Amery.

CHINA LOOTEDTHE PRIZE

HE R coal supply is twenty times that of Great

Britain, her iron resources cannot be measured;she produces in abundance silk, cotton, beanoil, lumber, wool, jute, skins, furs, rice and

eggs . Her industrial areas provide the world's cheapestlabour supply and her 450 millions the greatest untappedmarket in the world.

What a country to loot!

"T H E STAKESSmall wonder that financiers , investors and merchants

of all nationalities are playing high for the power to exploitthese resources and the people of China. Their stakesto-day are huge.

£700 millions are invested in China, mainly by British,.Japanese and American capitalists and financiers .

They own all China's railways, most of her shipping,all her greatest factories, her coalfields and many of heriron foundries. They have absolute control of all hercustoms ' receipts, salt tax receipts, telephones, telegraphand radio.

The prize is rich and the stakes are large. BritishJapanese and American imperial interests each seek thelargest slice. First, the Imperialists grab from the Chinesepeople and then they struggle between themselves for theloot. Before the war there were many claimants: Britain,France, Russia , Germany and Japan; but the war reducedthe rivals to three : Britain, Japan and the U. S. A.

THE PIONEERSFirst in - the field, most experienced in methodical

plundering and in maintaining the appearance of respect­ability, are the British Imperialists. Their record is

3

star tling in its audacity . T o establish their hold they sentt roops a nd wars hips to C hina s ix times between the yearsI 839 a nd I 927. In the course of these tri ps they bom­barded Canton, A moy, Peking and Nanking a nd killedand ruined many of the civil population . Then, hav ingforced her entrance into C hina, Britain fought in turn , bydiplomacy and finance , France, J apan , R ussia , Germany,the U .S .A . a nd again J a pan to prevent them from settingtoo much foo t in C hina .

I n I889 Britain combined with Germany to keep Franceout of S iam and Burma .

In I 895 Br itain helped Russ ia to keep Japan out ofS iberia . .

In 19°5 Britain backed J apan to break the R uss ia ndomination in Northern C hina and the German control ofS hantung.

From I907 to I9I I Britain financed th e Peking Govern­ment against the R evolutionary N a tiona lists .

F rom I 90 2 to I926 Britai n financed the J apaneseagainst the United States.

In I927 Britain helped the N ationa lists against theCom munists .

And no w in I 937 Britain seeks American support tohold the Japanese in check .

Always Britain repaid her allies-with C hinese territo rya nd concessions at the expense of the Chinese people.T he F rench were assisted to grab Y unan, the Japa nese,Korea , the Russians , Manchuria, the Germans, S hantung-only the A mericans needed no help !

A nd a ll these fantastic twi sts, turns and betrayals ofher allies by the British had one simple and definitepurpose:

To safeguard the £230 millions invested byBritish capitalists in China and the profitsderived from them.

This-no more, no less .

4

WHOSE MONEY?These British interests closely concern every section of

the British governing class : the landed aristocracy, manu­facturers and merchants and the City of London financiersall claim a share of China. Their investments accordingto the latest estimate is shown in the list below.

British interests have :-

£50 millions in General Import and Export Trade.£42 millions in Real Estate.£36 millions in Manufacturing.£28 millions in Railways and Shipping.£24 millions in Banking and Finance.£ro millions in Public Utilities.£4 millions in Mining.

£36 millions in Miscellaneous.

A total of £230 millions of British money and vested .interests .

An astonishing array of British firms, corporations arid 'banks have a finger in this pie.

Egg merchants, soap manufacturers, lumber exporters,cott on mills, cold storage, breweries, wharves, docks,engineering concerns, electric constructors, waterworks,power and gas companies, t~gether with a string offamiliar names : Paton and Baldwins, Liddell Brothers,American Tobacco Company, the P. and 0., the AsiaticPetroleum Company, and behind them, through the HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corporations, stands theexpectant wealth of the City of London.

£ r 80 millions of British money is concentrated inShanghai alone, while of the remainder £20 millions isin Hong Kong and £30 millions in the rest of China.

It is impossible to grasp fully the extent of the Britishhold on Southern China without showing the process ofthe British occupation. I ts importance will become clearwhen the Japanese aggression is considered.

Let us trace the ' familiar method.

5

In 1898 the Chinese Government needed money to paythe Japanese an indemnity. British interests undertookto give China the necessary' 'financial assistance." The4t per cent. Gold Loan was floated. China borrowed£16 millions. Actually she received only £13 millions;the difference was kept by the banks as "commission" ofone sort or another! China had to undertake to repay thefull capital of £16 millions, and in addition to pay interestfor 45 years amounting to £22 millions.

Thus, for a loan of £13 millions, BritishBanks and bondholders received back £38millions or 283 per cent. !

N or was this lucrative rake-off all that was asked ofChina. The loan had to be secured by "the entire revenueof the Chinese Maritime Customs." Control was lodgedin the British Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Cor­poration and it exists to this day. In June of 1937 the4t per cent. Gold Loan, which could be bought at £8339 years ago, was quoted in London at £102. This, afterhaving already received £177 in interest. A good thingfor somebody!

This was simply the beginning. Later loans showed adistinct improvement. The nicely styled ' 'ReorganisationLoan" which was to help to crush the NationalistRevolution amounted to £19 millions, and China had topledge her Salt Tax, her only taxable commodity, to repay£68 millions or 325 per cent. in 47 years.

In this way the British gained their footing in the SouthChina ports and took control over her customs and therailways and the shipping that carried British trade andopium into the interior.

But strange writings now appeared on the Great Wall !

RISING SUNFrom across the narrow Yellow Sea Japanese Banks ,

Japanese industries and Japanese statesmen were lookingfor suitable fields for the expansion of their rapidly growing

6

industry and population, and particularly for the profitsof the new ruling class. .

And what could be more attractive than the Britishexample in China?

Easy and very large profits, vast mineral resources, aready market and the chance of the Japanese flag followingher trade into China and so easing the social strain of herpoverty-stricken peasantry at home.

At the beginning of this century the Japanese began tocolonise China. In 1902 Japan concluded her alliancewith Great Britain. A quarter of a century of Anglo­Japanese friendship followed. These 25 years enabledJapan to establish herself in the Far East and to threatento-day British rule in the China Sea. Such is the natureof alliance and friendship between Empires!

THE SETTING SUNIn 1899 the Japanese share of the China trade was

II per cent. ; in 1930 it was 24 per cent. ' -more thandouble.

In the same period the British share dropped by one­third from 12 per cent. to 8 per cent.

In 1899 20 per cent. of all foreign firms in China wereJapanese; in 1930 more than 55 per cent . were Japanese-more than 2t times as many.

In the same period British firms dropped by two-thirds , .from 43 per cent. to 15 per cent.

In 1899 there were no Japanese investments in China .By 1930 they were as large as those of Great Britain.

Japan, largely through British help, ousted in turnImperial Russia, France and Germany from participationin the political and economic spoils of China. The basisfor this policy was a tacit understanding between Britainand Japan in I898, when Britain seized the Chinese portof Weihaiwei. In return Japan asked for the

"con currence of support of England for any similar measure shemight take in future to strengthen her defences or to promoteher interest."

7

The Chines e, of course, were not consulted.British investors and merchants exploited Southern

C hina , and the Japanese the North.But history did not stand still-nor did it repeat itself.

VICTIMS OF EMPIRET he arrival of the Japanese on the scene was accom­

panied by a long series of internal upheavals in China.C ontact with the western countries had brought westernpolitical ideas. In 191 I th e old Manchu dynasty was over­thrown and a Republic declared. The Emperor left, butthe generals and their methods remained. For ten years'war lords and local chiefs fought each other for the masteryof the country and the right to rob the peasantry .

While this was happening new social forces werefermenting ; the people were becoming articulate. Thepeasan try , driven to desperation by the whip of famine,and the town labourers, embittered by their experiencein large factories, were turning revolutionary.

Chinese labour in the Treaty Ports began to revolt.C onditions of work in British, Japanese and Chinesefactories were abominable. In the Shanghai cotton mills,for example, the British employed 17,000, the Japanese55, 000 , and Chinese 45 ,000 employees . Of these , 70,000were women , 30,000 children, and only 17,000 men.

T he men received 7d . to 1/- a day.The women less.T he children rd. to 6d. a day .

"N orm al hours are 12 for a day or night shift and sometimes15 or 16 hour shifts on the day before machines are stopped forcleaning, so that women and children may have to stand forperhaps 16 hours. Very young children are employed in themills."

"There is not time or place for meals. There is very littlelavatory accom modation . Babies are not allowed in the foreignfa ctories, so they have to be entrusted to a neighbour. Womenare allowed two weeks away at the time of their confinement.

I If they do not return then, they are liable to be dismissed.. They get no pay during this period. For serious accidents com­

pensation up to 50 dollars is sometimes given, but there is no

8

obligation to pay any compensation whatever. Here, as else­where, there is no fencing of machinery, and owing to the verylong hours worked and the youth of the workers, very seriousaccidents occur" (Col . Malone's Report to the I.L.P., 1926).

Since this description was written, wages have fallenand conditions have become worse.

But the workers in the industrial towns of China are aminority of the population. Less than five millions canbe classed as industrial workers, whereas there are morethan 400 million peasants and land labourers .

Peasant life has hardly chang ed since the Middle Ages.For centuries the Chinese peasant has been ex posed tothe ravages of the War Lords, usurers, landlords, offloods and famine.

But the great strike movements ofthe workers in HongKong, Canton and Shanghai carried their message fromthe town workers far into the interior, and the gist of iteven the simple peasant understood: his condit ions werenot unalterably fixed-it lay in his power to improve them.

T he great peasant revolt commenced ..

THE REVOLUTION MARCHES!These waves of the popular movements of the peasants

and the town workers were canalised in .the N ationalistRevolution led by the Kuomintang, which spread north­wards from Canton in 1926.

The Kuomintang programme aimed a t reumtmgC hina , modernising the Government , giving it a propercont rol over the army, sweep ing away the . antiquatedtraditions and enabling the country to develop its produc­tive forces-but all on sound Capitalist lines.

The Communists believed that the unity of C hina wasan essential prerequisite to a Social and Land Revolution,and supported the Kuomintang Government.

The National Revolution swept over all barriers intothe sacred British sphere of influence, into Shanghai andthe Wuhan industrial towns on the Yangtze River. Itwas welcomed in Shanghai by a General Strike of over a

9

million workers directed against Imperialism. Both theBritish and the Japanese Capitalists and the Chinesebankers, merchants, contractors and generals, who gavefinancial backing to the Kuomintang , took fright .

They organised a coup with General Chiang Kai-Shek,'the head of the Right-wing section of the National Army.They turned it against the workers, against the peasants,and particularly against the Communists . More than8 ,000 leading members of the Party were executed,villages in revolt were wiped out, and a reign of terrordirected against all who wished to carry out the promisesof the Kuomintang to its labour and peasant supporters.

The Revolution was halted.

THE FIRST SOVIETSThe peasants saw themselves cheated, saw the land­

lords coming back to reclaim their vast estates which hadbeen distributed among them. The town workers wereat the mercy of ,the terror. The peasants gathered whatarms they could , and in the Southern andCentral ChineseProvinces occupied the estates and - proclaimed the"Peasants' Soviet." The Civil War of the peasants andland labourers against the merchants and bankers and theirarmy was declared.

It lasted ten years, until the early days of 1937 . Sixgreat campaigns against the Soviets, organised with thehelp of British money and German generals, failed todestroy their spirit. Hard-pressed, the Soviets withdrewfrom the South and moved to N orth-West China. Againthe great area of China fell under the rule of landlords ,bankers, merchants and foreign Imperialists. Faminesrecurred at regular intervals. Edgar Snow, an Americanjournalist has described them :

"Children are pitiable with their little skeletons bent over andmisshaped, their crooked bones, their little arms like twigs, andtheir purpling bellies, filed with bark and sawdust, protrudinglike tumours. Women lie slumped in corners, waiting for death,their black blade-like buttocks protruding, their breasts hanginglike collapsed sacks. But there are, after all, not many womenand girls . Most of them have died or been sold. .

10

Millions of people died that way in famine and thousandsmore still die in China to-day like that. But these were not themost shocking things after all. The shocking thing was thatin many of those towns there were still rich men, rice-horders,wheat-horders, money-lenders and landlords, with armed guardsto defend them, while they profiteered enormously. The shock­ing thing was that in the cities-where officials danced or playedwith sing-song girls-here were grain and food, and had beenfor months; that in Peking and Tientsin and elsewhere therewere thousands of tons of wheat and millet, collected (mostly b ycontribution from abroad) by the Famine Commission, but whichcould not be shipped to the starving. Why not? Because in theNorth-West there were some militarists who wanted to hold allof their rolling-stock and would release none of it toward theeast, while in the east there were other Kuomintang generalswho would send no rolling-stock westward-even to starvingpeople-because th~y feared it would be seized by their rivals"(Red Star Over China]' page 217).

Again the peasantry grew desperate.

AGAINST JAPANChiang Kai-Shek failed to better the conditions of the

masses. This led to a growing revolutionary temper insidehis own territories. I t took the form of a great popularanti-Japanese movement after the invasion of Manchuriain 1932. By the spring of 1937 the J apanese militaryauthorities in China realised that Chiang Kai-Shek couldno longer hold the revolutionary movement in check.

Even the Japanese-controlled provinces in NorthernChina were in a perpetual state of ferment. Ten revoltsin the province of Chahar took place between April andJune, 1937. The Japanese therefore made an offer tothe Nanking Government for a joint campaign against theReds. .

But the Nanking Government refused. I t had torefuse.

Once more history has not stood still.The civil war against the Reds ceased. Nanking troops

fraternised with th e Reds. Chian g Kai-Shek waskidnapped by his own men. He had to undertake th at hewould oppo:-;e the ] apanes e.

I I

Another development of world-wide importance tookplace . The Japanese cam e into conflict with the BritishEmpire.

Every step the Japanese military took following theinvasion of Manchuria encroached on British financial andtrading inte rests . J apanese goods and merchantmendrove British trade almost from North China , Siam andthe Dutch East Indies. J apanese military occupation ofFormosa and of other strategic small islands near HongKong began to threaten British naval supremacy in theFar East.

British interests naturally became concerned to stemthe Japanese advance . Financial backing , advice andpressur e was put on the Nanking Government to resistfurther J apanese encroachment .

This threefold ·pressure of the Chinese Soviets, theg reat popular demand, and British Capital forced ChiangKai-Shek to take his stand against the Japanese .

THE REVOLUTION CONTINUESThis great wave of anti-J apanese feeling among the

C hine se people is merely the second phase of the incom­plete revolution of 1927 . One of the great authorities onC hina has put the situation in this way to the members ofthe Royal Institute for International Affairs :-

"China has not yet completed her revolution. The problemof the peasant and the absentee landlord remains to be solved.Though the long, arduuous task of getting civilians and war­lords alike to recognise the paramount authority of the CentralGovernment was nearing completion when the war began, thedevelopment of a democratic state remained to be ach ieved.The war may accelerate the unification, which must be regardedas a constructive force. Progress towards democracy may beretarded, for in China, as in Japan, war time necessity willinevitably strengthen the trend towards a totalitarian state"(E dward C. Carter, October 5th, 1937).

I t is clear, therefore, that if leaders of the Chinesepeople wish to avoid a repetition of the tragedy andbetrayal of 1927 they must strengthen their workers ' and

I 2

peasants' organisations against the Fascist tendencies oftheir own landlords and Capitalists as well as againstJapanese .Imperialism. To mobilise the masses againstJapan, they must give the masses what they refused themten years ago: land for the peasants and decent conditionsand Trade Union organisation for the workers.

Once again the Chinese movement against ForeignImperialism has unchained the forces of social revolution.Japanese aggression has clashed with this resurgence ofthe revolutionary movement in China.

The Japanese have therefore concentrated, above all,on breaking the morale of the Chinese people, hoping inthis way to stem the revolutionary tide against which theirarmies are of no avail. .

The towns and territories which they have failed tooccupy have been bombed ruthlessly to intimidate the civilpopulation. Even more sinister has been the methodemployed in Northern China, where the Japanese haveopened thousands of popular opium saloons, with theobject of making the people incapable of serious resistanceby turning them into addicts of opium and heroin .

HOW WE CAN HELPThe interest of the British workers is different from the

interest of the British Capitalists. We are not concernedin the millions of British profits gained by sweating Chineselabour or by selling cheap inferior goods at exorbitantprices to ignorant Chinese peasants.

But we are concerned in encouraging the socialrevolution in China and in defeating JapaneseIrnpertaltsrn.

How can we help?

The Labour movement of this and other countries hasappealed to the workers to refuse to purchase Japanesegoods so long as Japanese military action continues. TheI. L. P. endorses this appeal. If the workers outside Japan

13

refuse to buy Japanese goods the pressure will betremendous.

But this is not enough. The metal for the shells whichthe Japanese army is using, the oil for its aeroplanes andtanks, its bullets and machine guns, the supplies necessaryto sustain the Japanese forces in China, come in consider­able part from British sources and are in large parttransported from British harbours and on British ships.

It is in the po-mer of BTitish workers to stop this. Weshould refuse to make, handle or transport materials ofwar for Japan. The British working-class movementshould take the initiative in urging the working-classmovement of the world to such action.

ONLY THE \A/ORKING-CLASS MOVEMENTCAN STOP JAPAN'S AGGRESSION.

It is no use appealing to the National Government orthe League of Nations . Fifteen States have met in con­ference at Brussels . They passed a resolution condemningJapan-and did nothing.

Raise the demand for action in your Trade UnionBranch. Carry it to the Trades Councils and to TransportHouse. Make it sweep through the whole Trade UnionMovement.

But, when opposing Japanese Imperialism, let usremember that there are heroic Socialists in Japan whowith great courage are resisting their own Capitalist class.They are doing so at the cost of imprisonment and death .We have no quarrel with the Japanese workers andpeasants. Their enemy-Capitalism and Imperialism­is our enemy also.

British Imperialism is as much the enemy as JapaneseImperialism. The working class must fight all Imperial­isms . We must overthrow the Capitalist class everywhere .We must overthrow them to lay the foundations of aSocialist Society . Only thus can we end war .

Two Papers Every .AlertSocialist Should See

••1. THE NEW LEADER~

The weekly organ of the I.L.P. Puts the I.L.P. casevigorously on War, Fasci£m, Spain, China, Imperialism,the National Government , the Labour Party, the Com­munist Party, Working-class Unity, Soviet Russia, andon every live issue in the Working-class Movement.

The New Leader is only one penny.

2. CONTROVERSY.A monthly Open Forum of Socialist discussions .

Labour Party, Communist and I.L.P . writers all expresstheir views freely. It is the only journal in which you canread all sides in Working-class controve.rsy.

Controversy is only threepence .

I would like to see these papers. Please send me specimen copiesof the " New Leader" and "Controversy" and tell me how I can getthem regularly.

Name .

Address

I

Post this form to the Manager, Socialist Bookshop, 35, St. BrideStreet, London, E. C+

P rin t ed and pu bl ished by Th e National La bour P r ess . Ltd., 35 St. B r id e Street. London, E .C.4