Pax Japonica

One of the most potent excuses for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria was the need of protection and stable government in a bandit-infested land. Last week, 20 months after the first Japanese divisions took the field, officials of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo were faced with the following facts:

1) Within the past two months two attempts have been made to blow up the U. S. Consulate in Mukden, two more to blow up the British.

2) A bandit raid attempted to seize $50,000 Mex. from the Mukden branch of National City Bank.

3) The Yingkow-Kaopangtze train on the South Manchuria Railway was twice held up last week. Two white Russian railway guards were killed, the train was looted and 52 passengers carried off for ransom.

4) Aged U. S. Missionary Niels Nielsen, kidnapped in April, was still in bandit hands last week, as were three British ships' officers, kidnapped last March, despite vigorous Japanese efforts to obtain the release of all four.

5) George Flynn of Texas Petroleum Co. was stabbed in his home in Mukden by Manchurian bandits last week.

Distrusting Pax Japonica, U. S. and British firms were hiring private White Russian guards, setting up electrified barbed wire entanglements around their homes and places of business.

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