Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Series Editors
Oliviero Frattolillo
Roma Tre University
Rome, Italy
Yuichi Hosoya
Keio University
Tokyo, Japan
Antony Best
London School of Economics
London, UK
This series addresses the ways in which history influences the political,
economic and social development of East Asia, a region which now plays
a pivotal role in our world’s multipolar international system. The series
provides new perspectives on East Asia’s distinctive economic and political
situation through the lens of 20th century history, with a particular focus
on Pre-War and Cold War periods. It argues the need to re-examine the
history of East Asia and provide new historical approaches to a vibrant
and constantly changing region.
Highlighting that history is at the root of many modern day conflicts
in Asia, this series provides a global forum for rigorous academic research
and timely debate by scholars worldwide, and showcases significant new
research on East Asian history and politics in the contemporary era.
The series will appeal to specialists in the history and politics of
Asia; international history; scholars of modern and contemporary Japan,
Chinese and Korea as well as international relations.
The League
of Nations
and the East Asian
Imperial Order,
1920–1946
Harumi Goto-Shibata
University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan
Cover illustration: Alois Derso and Emery Kelen’s cartoon of the League of Nations.
Naotake Sato of Japan as a squirrel is playing golf at the bottom left side. From Le
Testament de Genève (Geneva, 1931). Reproduced by permission of Princeton University
Archives, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
Acknowledgments
This book is the product of my research leave from autumn 2018 to spring
2019. I spent most of this time writing the draft. I am enormously grateful
to Patricia Clavin and Henrietta Harrison for their precious time and
advice. I would also like to extend my profound thanks to my colleagues at
University of Tokyo, especially Tetsuya Sakai, Shin Kawashima, Yasutaka
Ichinokawa, Masami Nakao, Hiroyuki Ogawa and Nahoko Miyamoto
Alvey for their support and understanding; and also to Antony Best,
Olivielo Frattolillo and Yuichi Hosoya for including this book in their
new series.
Parts of the archival research on which this book is based started nearly
twenty years ago. I have been extremely fortunate to have very good
mentors and friends. I am tremendously indebted to Ian Nish, Yoichi
Kibata, Jane Garnett, John Darwin, Ann Waswo and Steve Tsang. Special
thanks are due to Naoko Shimazu, Hatsue Shinohara, Tomoko Akami,
Ken Ishida, Sochi Naraoka, Ryo Ikeda and Kayo Takuma (nee Yasuda) for
inspiring me intellectually; to Masaya Inoue and the steering members of
the Japan Association of International Relations for giving me the oppor-
tunity to present a paper at the commemorative 60th annual convention;
to Asahiko Hanzawa and Mika Inoue for organizing the colloquia on
the history of the United Nations; to Roger Goodman, Victoria Forster,
Vandana Desai, Sho Konishi and Chika Tonooka for making my stay in the
U. K. pleasant and comfortable; and to the members of Global History
Collaborative for arranging a workshop at Princeton.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Profound thanks are also due to archivists and libraries for their assis-
tance and for permission to cite the materials they hold in their care.
The archival research was supported by JSPS Grants-in Aid for Scien-
tific Research, Numbers JP13610443, JP18520556 and JP22530150. I
would also like to express my gratitude to Oxford University Press and
Cambridge University Press for their permission to reprint my journal
articles; to the team at Palgrave Macmillan for efficiently bringing this
book to publication.
My family has supported me in numerous ways. Without the support
and understanding of Emily Ayako Sato, Hideaki and Kyoko Goto, I
could not have found time to do any research and to write even a word.
Betty, Shingo, Hikaru, Akiko and Chiaki have always been the source
of my joy and happiness. Last but not least, thank you, Mark Makoto
Shibata. I dedicate this book to you.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
vii
viii CONTENTS
11 Conclusion 249
Achievements and Continuities 249
Discontinuities and a New Departure 252
Bibliography 257
Index 283
Abbreviations
xi
xii ABBREVIATIONS
NGB, M-2-2 NGB, Manshū Jihen, dai 2 kan, dai 2 satsu [Manchurian
Incident, Part 2, Vol. 2]
NGB, M-3 NGB, Manshū Jihen, dai 3 kan [Manchurian Incident, Part
3]
NGB, M-bekkan NGB, Manshū Jihen, bekkan [Manchurian Incident, extra
volume]
OAC Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other
Dangerous Drugs
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition
PCOB Permanent Central Opium Board
TCC Council Committee on Technical Co-operation between the
League of Nations and China
TNA The National Archives, Kew
TWC Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children
Notes on Japanese and Chinese Names
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The League of Nations and East Asia—what do you associate this with?
Most probably the Manchurian Crisis; the impact of which was over-
whelming. At the same time, it should be noted that there was a lot
more to the League of Nations and East Asia than the Crisis. This book
uncovers the League’s works in East Asia in social, economic and human-
itarian fields, and examines their impact on the international relations in
the region.
After the calamities of the First World War, the League of Nations was
established to prevent further international conflict. As the United States
did not become its member, the League’s influence was limited. It failed
in its primary objective and could not prevent the Second World War, so
that it was reviled and neglected for a very long time.
In the twenty-first century, however, interest in the League of Nations
has revived and is flourishing. One of the reasons is that it is now recog-
nized that the League was more than a collective security arrangement.
The League had a very wide spectrum of economic, social and other tech-
nical activities, and it accomplished quite a lot in these fields. It laid ‘the
foundation for the institutions of global governance we have today’.1
For example, Patricia Clavin has shown the growing importance of the
League’s undertakings in economics in her Securing the World Economy.
She has also shown the continuity of people and their works into the
period of the United Nations.2
that it is not easy even to classify them.’5 David Mitrany, a political scien-
tist, had these operations and people making them work in mind when
he crafted his functionalist theory.6
This book concerns this third category: the League to promote inter-
national co-operation. It extends the analysis of the League of Nations
to East Asia, examining its social and humanitarian works, which have
been neglected. As it was impossible to separate those works from existing
economic agreements made by the countries, this book also touches upon
economic issues.
Even when historians included East Asia in their analyses of the League
of Nations, they hitherto tended to focus on the moment of crisis, namely
the Manchurian Crisis. Nobody denies its significance, but more light
should be shed on the League of Nations and East Asia, and on various
aspects. Otherwise, our understanding of the period remains too simple
and superficial. The League’s social and other technical works are signifi-
cant as such. In addition, they were closely related to the development
in international relations in the region. Rappard was quite optimistic
in 1925. He considered those technical works non-political. However,
Edward Hallett Carr wrote in his The Twenty Years’ Crisis as follows:
As Carr pointed out, technical works often turned out to be highly polit-
ical. They were also related to the rise and fall of power and authority
of countries. Still, just as East Asia has remained in the shadows in the
previous studies of the League of Nations, the League has been almost
completely overlooked in the study of the international history of East
Asia, except its involvement in the Manchurian Crisis. The works by Ian
Nish and Thomas Burkman are superb, but neither of them takes social
and other technical issues into consideration.8 This book is at the inter-
section of the study of the League and that of the international history of
East Asia, and aims to advance both.
More specifically, this book takes up several issues which the League
tackled in East Asia: namely the control of trafficking in opium, and tech-
nical co-operation with China. The control of the traffic in drugs was
4 H. GOTO-SHIBATA
directly mentioned by Carr in the above quote. It was also one of the
most difficult problems for Japan in the League.9 Technical co-operation
with China developed from the works in the field of health, which was
also mentioned by Carr. It later developed into a wide-ranging project.
This book also deals with the issue of assisting Russian women refugees
in China, because this, as well as the control of opium trafficking, devel-
oped from the work based on Article 23 (c) of the League’s Covenant. In
addition, the same individuals such as Dame Rachel Crowdy (1884–1964)
were involved in the two issues. Crowdy was the highest-ranking woman
in the League Secretariat, and was the chief of the Social Questions and
Opium Traffic Section. She also offered a link between the League and
voluntary organizations.10 After she left the League, she visited Japan and
Manchuria twice, in 1931 and 1934.
This book argues that the League achieved quite a lot in the field of
social and technical works; and that those works came to challenge the
existing imperial order in East and Southeast Asia, although to do so was
by no means the intention of the founding fathers of the League. One
point to be remembered is that, different from Europe, the First World
War did not change East Asia very much. Empires firmly remained in the
region. Britain and France, the mainstays of the League of Nations, were
empires with considerable interests in East and Southeast Asia. In her
study on the Institute of Pacific Relations, Tomoko Akami has pointed
out that the Great Powers which promoted internationalism in the inter-
war period were at the same time empires.11 In addition to Britain and
France, the Netherlands ruled the Dutch East Indies, while Macao was
the colony of Portugal. Japan was also an empire, and it maintained
various interests in China. Furthermore, China itself had an imperial face,
although its semi-colonial status in the inter-war period is usually empha-
sized. The Republic of China inherited the territory of Qing which was
a land-based empire. Qing had conquered Xinjiang in the eighteenth
century and ruled the indigenes in Yunnan. I regard this international
order consisting of these empires to be the imperial order. Neither the
empires nor the League of Nations intended to change the existing order
of the region. They were rather ‘the guardians’ of the order.12 They
intended to maintain the status quo.
If the League did not have the intention to change the imperial order,
how did its works come to challenge this order? First, there were various
problems to be solved in the region and they were entangled in the
existing order. Trying to solve them from a universal perspective resulted
1 INTRODUCTION 5
By that time, Japan had also declared its intention to withdraw. The
rise of Nazi Germany resulted in the USSR joining the League in
September 1934, and it was a permanent member until December 1939.
Meanwhile, many countries including China considered the position
of non-permanent member as a symbol of international status.14 The
number of non-permanent members was increased to six in 1922, nine
in 1926, ten in 1933 and eleven in 1936. The Council usually met four
to five times per year, and more often during emergencies.
The first Assembly was held from November to December 1920. From
September 1921 onwards, the Assembly met once per year. Both the
Council and Assembly were supported by the Secretariat, which prepared
for various meetings and implemented their decisions. The role of the
Secretariat was especially significant during the long period when neither
the Council nor the Assembly was in session. The first secretary-general,
Sir Eric Drummond, created the Secretariat. He was a Scottish aristocrat
educated at Eton, and entered the British Foreign Office in 1900. He
was also a member of the British delegation to the Paris Peace Confer-
ence.15 There would be some under secretaries-general, and a number of
sections such as the Political Section, each with a director as its head.16
Drummond was determined to recruit international civil servants to work
in the League, not those merely representing their own countries. A
balance of nationalities among those who occupied high positions had
to be considered.17
This book responds to the following questions. What were the
League’s social and other technical works in East Asia? What were their
achievements and limits? What were their long-term impacts? Were they
an isolated endeavour during the inter-war period? Or were they carried
on in the post-war world? This book covers the period until the end of
1946, and shows that the League’s works were succeeded by the United
Nations Organization. By answering the questions, this book argues that
the impact of the League of Nations in East Asia has hitherto been
underestimated.
The book is divided into two parts. Part I (Chapters 2–5) intro-
duces the League’s social, economic and humanitarian works in East Asia
and considers how they functioned. Chapter 2 first supplies context for
including social and humanitarian issues in the League’s Covenant, and
observes establishing technical organizations such as the OAC. Among
the various aspects of the League such as the Council and the Assembly,
8 H. GOTO-SHIBATA
Part I of this book mainly engages with several of those technical commit-
tees. As the committees were supported by relevant sections of the
Secretariat, this book also considers some officials of those sections.
Chapter 2 then looks at how Japan joined the League and came to partic-
ipate in those committees. It also introduces the characteristics of those
Japanese who were involved in the League.
Chapter 3 examines the League’s efforts to solve the problem of opium
trafficking and smoking. The League’s OAC functioned as a forum. It
asked the participating countries to provide information on opium not
only in their home countries but also in their colonies. It then discussed
the issue openly. The publicity or the threat of publicity forced the
member countries to introduce reforms in their opium regimes.
Chapter 4 examines Japan’s reactions to the technical co-operation
between the League of Nations and China. The members of the League’s
Secretariat played significant roles. Initially, there was no committee.
Concerning this issue, the League was more an actor, or a company of
actors, than a forum.
Chapter 5 is a short chapter which deals with the plight of Russian
women refugees in China. Article 23 (c) made the supervision over the
trafficking in women and children another task of the League. The Advi-
sory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children (hereafter, TWC) was
established. It also functioned as a forum. The Commission of Enquiry
sent to East Asia uncovered the unfortunate situation of Russian women
refugees. Individual actors such as Crowdy also overlapped with those
involved in the opium question. The aim of this Chapter is to observe the
part played by women relating to the League’s works in East Asia. The
Chapter also shows that Japan continued to participate in the League’s
social and humanitarian committees even after its withdrawal.
Part II (Chapters 6–10) traces the technical co-operation to its end,
and follows the control of opium until the end of 1946. At the same time,
it covers the rise and fall of the power and authority of the relevant coun-
tries in relation to the social and technical issues. Although those issues
were considered to be non-political, they turned out to be highly political,
and differences in opinions and collisions of interests were observed.
Chapter 6 examines how Japan withdrew from the League, and how
China, taking the opportunity, requested a seat in the Council. Article
1 of the League’s Covenant stipulated that any member may withdraw
after two years’ notification. The actual procedure of the withdrawal,
however, was not decided. Japan said that it would continue to co-operate
1 INTRODUCTION 9
in the League’s technical meetings such as the OAC and the TWC. China
initially argued that Japan could not withdraw without fulfilling what was
required by the League. On the other hand, China aspired to have a
higher status on the international stage. Japan’s withdrawal gave it a good
opportunity to require a permanent, or at least a semi-permanent seat in
the Council.
Chapter 7 examines technical co-operation between the League and
China after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. As a part of the co-
operation, the League sent experts to prevent epidemic diseases from
spreading. Although their contributions were significant, differences of
opinions between those who were supposed to be co-operating grew
wide. From the beginning of the co-operation, there were some Chinese
who worried that the co-operation might turn out to be another form of
foreign intervention, infringing upon China’s sovereignty. In the period
after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, differences of opinion were
observed between the League experts and the Chinese, and also within
the League itself.
Chapter 8 examines the final stage of the co-operation, which was
carried out in the south-western part of China due to the war. The
region bordered on British Burma. In the Yunnan-Burma borderland,
both Britain and China ruled the indigenes indirectly. China needed
international assistance to fight against Japan, but not all welcomed the
co-operation wholeheartedly. Some wondered whether co-operation with
the League so deeply into the country was worthwhile.
Chapter 9 observes the limits of the League’s opium control by way
of examining the final stage of the opium question in British Burma.
This book begins by looking at the League’s tackling of the opium ques-
tion. As will be seen in Chapter 3, its achievement was considerable. The
complete eradication of opium, however, was not achieved by the time
of the demise of the League of Nations. Indeed, the question of opium
eating was not touched at all. One region where the problem remained
is the borderland, which was dealt with in Chapter 8. To control the use
and trafficking of opium in the mountainous border region covered with
dense forests was considered almost impossible. Britain was, however,
placed under the pressure of the United States during the Second World
War.
Chapter 10 considers how the League and the United Nations Orga-
nization were related. The establishment of the Commission on Narcotic
Drugs (CND) in the United Nations Economic and Social Council
10 H. GOTO-SHIBATA
(ECOSOC) is closely studied. In the case of the CND, which was estab-
lished in 1946, the link with the League is clear and strong. This chapter
shows that the League did not just disappear, but many of its works
were succeeded by the United Nations. The authority and power of the
Republic of China were almost at its zenith in the period covered in
Chapter 10. The international co-operation was useful to the country. It
also understood the value of presenting itself as being interested in social
questions. It contributed greatly to the setting up of the CND.
Many studies relating to individual topics are cited throughout the
book. Here at the end of the introduction, let us just briefly observe the
change of the central authorities of China, because it happened several
times during the period examined in this book.
The Qing dynasty ruled China since the seventeenth century, but it
was in decline at the beginning of the twentieth century. The powers
competed for economic profits in the country. The United States was a
relative newcomer, and advanced an ‘open door’ policy as a way of safe-
guarding its interests. In order to change the situation from competition
into co-operation, the first China consortium agreement for financing
Chinese railways was signed in 1910 by the banks of Britain, France,
Germany and the United States. Russian and Japanese banks were later
allowed to co-operate with the consortium. Co-operation was, however,
just among the powers. The Chinese were dissatisfied with foreign railway
loans. The revolution in 1911 made the Qing dynasty fall in 1912. The
Republic of China was established.
The central government continued to exist in Beijing until the mid-
1920s. The Beijing government did not sign the Treaty of Versailles that
allowed Japan to succeed German interests on the Shandong Peninsula.
The Republic of China signed the Treaty of Saint-Germain, and joined
the League as an original member, more willingly than Japan, although
it was disappointed with American non-participation. The Chinese found
that international society was more useful in seeking assistance to change
the existing situation in China than bilateral negotiations with its mighty
counterparts, whether it be Japan or Britain.18 Their aspiration in the
1920s was to revise treaties and to improve its international status. The
Beijing government also aspired to have a non-permanent seat in the
Council. It had to be elected to the Council to secure one. It was
successful in 1920 and 1926, but the outcome of the election was not
always guaranteed. It also insisted at the time of creating the League of
Nations that its financial contribution to the League should be almost
1 INTRODUCTION 11
Notes
1. Susan Pedersen, The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of
Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 8–9.
2. Patricia Clavin, Securing the World Economy: The Reinvention of the League
of Nations 1920–1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
3. Sunil S. Amrith, Decolonizing International Health: India and Southeast
Asia, 1930–65 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
4. Susan Pedersen, ‘Back to the League of Nations’, The American Historical
Review, 112/4, 2007, pp. 1091–1117; id., The Guardians.
12 H. GOTO-SHIBATA
How did social and humanitarian issues come to be included in the scope
of the League of Nations? David Hunter Miller, the legal advisor of the
US State Department, mentioned several times in his The Drafting of the
Covenant that the British officials played a significant role in ‘extending
the humanitarian activities of the League’.1 Therefore, paying particular
attention to Britain, the first section of this chapter briefly observes the
emergence of social and other technical issues in the Covenant of the
League. The second section explores how Japan joined the League, and
the last section examines the League’s arrival in East Asia.
The horrors and destruction of the First World War strengthened the
desire to prevent a repetition of conflicts. The war also convinced some
people of the acute necessity of international co-operation. In Britain
during the war, the Bryce Group was the first to discuss the idea of an
international organization to maintain peace. Its leader was James Bryce,
historian, Liberal politician and the former British ambassador to Wash-
ington. Among the members was John Atkinson Hobson, a well-known
journalist.2 Partly inspired by them, the League of Nations Society was
established in the summer of 1915. Lord Robert Cecil, the parliamentary
under-secretary of state for foreign affairs and the minister of blockade
from February 1916, also came to consider the establishment of the inter-
national organization as a most important task. As the son of the third
Marquess of Salisbury and the cousin of Arthur Balfour, Cecil was the
best-connected among the British advocates of international organization.
Both Salisbury and Balfour were former prime ministers.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the League to Enforce Peace was
formed. At its meeting held in May 1916, President Woodrow Wilson
publicly advocated the idea of an international organization. The idea
came to be included in the war aims as the United States joined the
Allies in April 1917. On 5 January 1918, the British prime minister,
David Lloyd George, gave a speech to the Trades Union Congress at
Caxton Hall. He declared the creation of some international organization
as being among Britain’s preconditions for peace. Cecil was among those
who drafted the speech.3 Three days later, President Wilson demanded a
general association of nations in his Fourteen Points speech. The French
including Leon Bourgeois were also working on their plan.
By the end of the war, it became obvious that establishing a new
international organization would be negotiated at the peace conference.
The British prepared well for the actual schemes for the League, and
their proposals greatly influenced its formation.4 On 3 January 1918, just
before the Caxton Hall speech, the Committee on the League of Nations
was appointed. Its chairman was Sir Walter Phillimore, a jurist and a
privy councillor. The plan of the Phillimore Committee was submitted
on 20 March 1918. It was still ‘limited in function to the considera-
tion of disputes on urgent occasions’. It did not provide for any regularly
recurrent meetings; its conference was the diplomatic group in a partic-
ular capital which came together when they were convened at a time of
stress.5
2 SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN ISSUES 19
such as Colonel Edward House, the adviser to the president, and Robert
Lansing, the secretary of state. They agreed that experts from the two
countries should meet and draft a League of Nations treaty for consid-
eration as soon as possible. Cecil recorded on 12 January that a drafting
committee of the League of Nations was held in the evening and that it
made some progress.18 Miller recorded that a revision of Cecil’s earlier
paper was received on 18 January.19
Cecil and Smuts met President Wilson on the evening of 19 January.
Wilson showed his scheme for the League of Nations, and Cecil’s
impression of it was ‘almost entirely Smuts and Phillimore combined’.
Fortunately, Wilson was not difficult to deal with.20 Cecil showed the
president a copy of his draft convention and this became one basis for the
discussions between Cecil and Miller, who ‘received considerable powers
to discuss the differences between the American and the British League
of Nations scheme’.21 Miller noticed in discussions with Cecil ‘how much
the British were thinking of matters of international co-operation’.22
The Cecil-Miller Draft, which was prepared by 27 January, touched
upon appointing a ‘Commission to study and report on economic, sani-
tary and other similar problems of international concern’, although it
was considered supplementary.23 After Cecil exchanged opinions with
the president and Colonel House on 31 January,24 the legal adviser
of the British Foreign Office, Cecil Hurst, and Miller prepared the so-
called Hurst-Miller draft on 1 and 2 February. Thus, by the time the
League of Nations Commission began its work with President Wilson
as its chairman, substantial progress had already been made between the
American and British experts.
The first meeting of the League of Nations Commission was convened
on 3 February. Wilson, the chairman, laid the Hurst-Miller draft before
the Commission. Even Bourgeois saw it for the first time.25 He laid
the French proposal, while Italy laid an Italian draft scheme before the
Commission. But they did not oppose Wilson’s suggestion that the
Anglo-American draft should form the basis of the discussion. There
were initially fifteen members in the Commission, namely two members
representing each of the five principal allies, and five members elected
to represent all the other powers. Among the members were Nobuaki
Makino (1861–1949) and Sutemi Chinda (1857–1929) of Japan, and
young V. K. Wellington Koo (Gu Weijun, 1888–1985) of the Republic
of China. Koo’s impressive English name was taken from the Duke of
Wellington. He received a doctorate from Columbia University, and was
22 H. GOTO-SHIBATA
for her work at the Voluntary Aid Detachment run by the British Red
Cross during the First World War, and had been made a DBE for her
work in 1919. She was recruited to work in the League in the same year,
and initially, her works included issues concerning traffic in opium and
other dangerous drugs, the traffic in women and children, and even health
questions. The independent Health Section was established in 1921, and
Crowdy became the chief of the Social Questions and Opium Traffic
Section in 1922.
Complete equality, however, was not achieved. While the LNHO
expanded, her section remained small. Her staff were not necessarily
competent. While other male section heads were all directors, she was
never given a rank of director or a salary equal to that of male section
heads.40 Furthermore, the contracts of male heads of other sections were
renewed for seven years in September 1928, but Crowdy’s contract lasted
for only one more year. She left the League in 1930.41
What had started out as a peace movement of its own was quickly
used to underwrite another kind of imperial policy, and the door into
other people’s economies was soon being forced open by British diplo-
mats, backed by gunboats, everywhere from West Africa to Istanbul and
Peking.42
was born in Washington, DC, because his father was then working at
the Chinese Legation there. Those diplomats of the Republic of China
were competent, and internationalist by instinct and training. Further-
more, they were extremely fluent in English, and indeed some were more
natural in English than in Chinese. Hoo and T. V. Soong (Song Ziwen,
1894–1971) communicated in English.52
The language problem of the Japanese would become serious when the
League dealt with technical questions, because most Japanese experts of
such specialized issues had been born, bred and educated only in Japan.
Even if they could read, understand and acquire necessary information
written in English or French, they were not trained to communicate
in those languages. Japan had established its modern education system
based on its native language in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
This had been useful when Japan developed its industry and the mili-
tary forces, because neither workers nor soldiers had to learn foreign
languages at all. Once the Japanese had to communicate on the interna-
tional stage, however, the lack of proficiency in foreign languages turned
out to be a severe and serious handicap. Either experts with no language
ability attended meetings themselves, or they asked non-experts who
could communicate in English or French to do so—whichever the case,
a good performance could not be expected. Descriptions like ‘a smiling
Japanese who appeared to know no language besides Japanese’ could be
often found both in the primary and secondary literature.53
The Japanese themselves were aware of the problem of language
proficiency and did not consider the situation satisfactory. Kikujiro Ishii
(1866–1945), the representative of Japan to the League of Nations as well
as the ambassador to France from 1920 to 1927, wrote in his memoirs as
follows:
… anyone could see that the Japanese members who had to participate in
international conferences were in a difficult situation; although they had
favourably comparable knowledge on the topics discussed there, they did
not have the ability to express nor to explain it, so that they had to sit
silently in the corner of the room.54
Ishii lamented the disgrace and disadvantage the Japanese were suffering
as a result of their neglect of foreign language acquisition. It is highly
likely that the Japanese missed opportunities to socialize and join in
the community of the League officials or the representatives from other
28 H. GOTO-SHIBATA
Only Italy and Japan among the great powers looked upon the meeting as
an occasion of practical importance. … Japan appreciated the fact that at
Geneva she stood on an equal footing with the leading States of Europe
and could watch and, if she chose, share in, the management of interna-
tional affairs. The Japanese delegation was so numerous that a ship had to
be specially chartered to bring it to Europe.58
Walters also wrote that the ‘Japanese government was greatly attached to
the League’, and Shidehara and his colleagues of the Minseito party were
‘on the friendliest terms with the Secretariat’.59
The Japanese Bureau for the League of Nations Affairs was established
in Paris in 1921. Its aim was to support the Japanese ambassador to
France who was also the Japanese representative to the League.60 The
number of Bureau members was less than that of the Japanese Embassy
in London, but almost the same as that of the embassies in Belgium,
Italy and the Netherlands. The Japanese diplomats who worked in the
Bureau can be called the ‘League men’. Most of them had the experience
of service in France, while that in Britain, the United States, and Asian
countries was limited.61 Their first foreign language was French, which
means that they were not necessarily fluent in English. Not many Japanese
were good at both English and French, the two official languages of the
League. Elisabetta Tollardo considers that the lack of fluency in English
in the case of the Italians limited the possibility of interaction with other
2 SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN ISSUES 29
League officials and especially with the Americans.62 It is likely that the
same was observed in the case of Japan’s ‘League men’.
Japan’s ‘League men’ were expected to become good at conference
diplomacy. The shared experience of France and the League itself made
them favourable to internationalism and to international co-operation
through the League. They devoted themselves to the organization. The
Japanese delegates to the League contributed to solving problems such as
the minorities questions between European countries.
have good relations with the United States. Different from the ‘League
men’, however, he spent most of his career at the Foreign Ministry in
Tokyo. He also served in the United States. It cannot be said that he made
efforts for international co-operation in general; rather, he was thinking
of co-operation with big powers, especially with the United States.
Yotaro Sugimura (1884–1939) is a complicated example. If we look
at his career first, he entered the Foreign Ministry four years after Sato
and was fortunate to be given the opportunity to study international
law at the University of Lyon. He received a doctorate there.72 After
serving at the Imperial Japanese Bureau for the League of Nations Affairs,
he succeeded Nitobe in January 1927, becoming one of the under
secretaries-general and the director of the Political Section of the League.
There was an unwritten rule that if an under secretary-general was of a
certain nationality, his successor would be from the same country.
Even after Sugimura became a League official, he continued to be
formally employed in the administration of Japan. Tollardo shows that
such ‘double-employment’ was frequent also in the cases of Germany and
Italy. These countries wanted their nationals to maintain links to their
home countries, especially when the information was needed. Having dual
loyalty was not a problem as far as the League and the home country
shared a common objective.73 It should be added that in Japan’s case,
it was not easy to find a person who would be able to work in the
Secretariat74 because of the language problem mentioned above.
Sugimura was one of the keenest on the League of Nations among
the Japanese in the 1920s, writing articles in Japanese explaining the
Covenant of the League of Nations. He was considered to be one of
Japan’s internationalists. At the Secretariat, Sugimura formed ‘a partic-
ularly trusting and affectionate relationship’ with Drummond.75 In
addition, in his memoirs published by the Japanese League of Nations
Association in 1930, he praised the British representatives at the League
as being flexible, practical and the best. He described Sir Austen Cham-
berlain, British foreign secretary 1924–1929, as an honest, fair and
respectable person in whom one could truly trust his strong sense of
responsibility.76
Sugimura, just like Shidehara, tended to understand internationalism
to be the co-operation with major powers. Furthermore, as will be seen in
Chapter 4, Sugimura was also a nationalist. Internationalism and nation-
alism coexisted in him. Japan’s national interests were always in his mind.
It seems that he was also a pragmatic person. Sugimura’s remarks after
32 H. GOTO-SHIBATA
Japan withdrew from the League became more nationalist than interna-
tionalist. Such remarks were probably necessary to communicate with the
military whose power was on the rise in the country.77 On the other hand,
the divergence between the League and Japan after the Manchurian Crisis
must have placed him under tremendous stress. Sugimura died of cancer
in 1939 at the age of 55.
Japan was a unique member of the League, and it is almost impos-
sible to categorize it into any one group. First, Japan was a permanent
member of the Council and a colonial power. It had a Class C mandate
under its supervision. Therefore, it shared characteristics with powers such
as Britain and France. Those countries were surely what Japan and the
Japanese diplomats such as Sugimura aimed to be like. On the other hand,
it was obvious that Japan was not a real equal with Britain and France.
Japan was an Asian member. There were only a few independent Asian
countries in the inter-war period. Initially, there were only four League
members in South to East Asia: China, India, Japan and Siam. Most other
territories were still colonies of Western powers. India was an anomalous
case. It could become a League member due to its contribution to the
war efforts of the mighty British Empire. It was, however, admitted only
after arguments. Wilson was actually against the membership of colonies,
arguing that if India could be a member, then the Philippines also could.
Under the circumstances, the Japanese always felt that they might be
isolated or discriminated because of race.
Japan, which had only poorly prepared for the establishment of the
League of Nations as a whole, did not expect at all that social and
humanitarian issues would be included in the Covenant. Japan’s atten-
tion was concentrated on disarmament, mandates, and the racial equality
proposal.78 Ishii considered technical conferences as less important than
other diplomatic meetings.79 Still, once the technical issues were included
in the Covenant, the Japanese government did not neglect them. As Iris
Borowy writes, the Japanese government considered LNHO work suffi-
ciently important to order its representative to remain permanently in
Europe to take part in its work, instead of returning to Japan as he had
previously planned to do.80
Another point which should be added concerning Japan is that the
League did not come into contact with ordinary Japanese subjects at
all; only the elite of Japan in some way or another knew the League.
Japan was still a class-based society in those days, and the gap between
the wealthy and the poor was huge. The language ability of those experts
2 SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN ISSUES 33
who attended the League meetings might have been poor, but still, they
received higher education. On the other hand, there were many Japanese
who only had six years of compulsory elementary education. The rate of
literacy itself was high, but the knowledge of foreign languages was nil or
extremely limited at best. The League of Nations Association in Japan was
an organization which had a strong link with the Foreign Ministry. It was
by no means a voluntary organization supported by ordinary people. Its
characteristics were different from those of the British League of Nations
Union.
Based on his report, it was decided that the Eastern Bureau would be
established in Singapore in 1925 as the regional epidemiological intelli-
gence centre of the LNHO. Preventing epidemics, such as cholera and
plague, or at least collecting information on them was a significant work
of the LNHO. The Bureau came to be commonly referred to as the ‘Far
Eastern Bureau’. In those days, the term ‘Far East’ covered not only East
Asia but also today’s Southeast Asia. The Eastern Bureau would be the
symbol of the League’s global reach.82 Two Japanese would hold the
position of deputy director of the Eastern Bureau: Tadashi Sato for one
year from April 1926, and Dr Tsune Ouchi from September 1929 to
January 1939. Both were selected from Japan’s Home Ministry.83
White also proposed to have an interchange of public health personnel
in Japan. The purpose of this system was to stimulate the exchange
of information and experience and to promote liaison between the
various health administrations. The interchange was held in Japan in
October 1925. Seventeen public health officers from eleven administra-
tions studied in detail the public health services of Japan.84 Dr Thor-
vald Madsen, the president of the Health Committee, and Dr Ludwik
Rajchman, the director of the League’s Health Section and the secretary
of the Health Committee, also participated in the exchange. Drs Shiko
and Hiroshi Kusama, Japanese First Division members of the Health
Section at that time, were also there. They were brothers.85 Shiko Kusama
was a Christian who had studied sociology at the University of Chicago,
and went on to its graduate school. He came to know Miyajima, when
the latter visited the city, and started working at the Japanese Bureau for
the League of Nations Affairs in 1921. Later, he worked in the Secretariat
of the League of Nations for a few years. He would succeed Miyajima as a
member of the Permanent Central Opium Board (hereafter, PCOB), and
he would be involved in the League of Nations until Japan finally severed
its relations in November 1938. Hiroshi Kusama, the younger brother,
studied at Johns Hopkins University. He would come back to Japan after
four years at the Health Section.86
Now, back to Rajchman. While in Tokyo, he was impressed with the
‘magnificent system of public health administration which had been built
up in Japan’.87 There was not much room for the LNHO to work in
Japan. Rajchman then visited China, and had meetings with the Chinese
health authorities. Here he was ‘impressed with the sense of a new begin-
ning and powerful nationalist consciousness’. Also, he ‘saw an urgent
need not only for public health measures, notably effective quarantine
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No. 6. SIRLOIN OR RUMP OF BEEF.
As the very tender part of this favourite joint, which lies under the
bone, and is called the fillet, is preferred by many eaters, the beef
should be raised, and some slices be taken from it in the direction a
b, before the carver proceeds further. The slices should be cut quite
across the joint, from side to side, as indicated by the line from c to
d, in which direction the whole of the meat is occasionally carved,
though it is much more usual to slice the upper part from e to f.
When the brown outside has been taken off this, it should be evenly
carved in thin slices, and served with some of the gravy in the dish,
and accompanied with horseradish very lightly and finely scraped,
with tufts of which the beef is commonly garnished.
RIBS OF BEEF.
Are carved in the same manner as the sirloin; but there is no fillet
attached to them.
A ROUND OF BEEF.
The shoulder must be divided, and raised entirely from the breast
in the direction of the letters a b c d. A slice of butter sprinkled with
cayenne and salt is then usually laid between them, and a little
lemon-juice is added, or a cold Mâitre d’Hôtel sauce is substituted for
these. The shoulder may then be removed into another dish or not,
as is most convenient. The brisket is next separated from the long
bones in the line e f, and carved in the direction g h; the rib-bones
are divided from i i to j j. The choice of the different parts is offered in
serving them.
No. 9. SHOULDER OF MUTTON OR LAMB.
Commence by cutting from the outer edge direct to the bone of the
shoulder in the line a b, and carve as many slices from that part of
the joint as it will afford: then, if more be required, draw the knife on
either side of the ridge of the blade-bone in the direction c c d d. The
fat must be carved in the line e f. Some eaters have a preference for
the juicy, but not very finely-grained flesh on the underside of the
shoulder, which must be turned, for it to be carved. For the mode of
boning a shoulder of mutton or veal, and giving it a more agreeable
appearance, see 219.
No. 10. A SUCKING PIG.
Every part of a sucking pig is good, but some persons consider the
flesh of the neck which lies between the shoulders, and the ribs as
the most delicate portion of it. The shoulders themselves are
preferred by others. They should be taken off, and the legs also, by
passing the knife under them at the letters a b c. The ribs may then
be easily divided from e to d. The flesh only of the larger joints
should be served to ladies; but gentlemen often prefer it sent to them
on the bones.
A FILLET OF VEAL.
This may be carved at choice quite across through the thick part of
the flesh, or in slices taken in the direction of the bones. A slice of
the kidney, and of the fat which surrounds it, should accompany the
veal.
No. 11. A BREAST OF VEAL.
This is sliced, not very thin, through the thickest and best part,
shown by the letters a b. The fat of the root, when it is liked, must be
carved by turning the tongue, and cutting in the direction c d.
No. 13. A CALF’S HEAD.
This bird was formerly always sent to table with the head on, but it
was a barbarous custom, which has been partially abandoned of late
in the best houses, and which it is hoped may soon be altogether
superseded by one of better taste. The breast is by far the finest part
of a pheasant, and it is carved in slices from pinion to pinion, in the
lines a a b b; the legs may then be taken off, in the direction c d. The
bird, when it is preferred so, may be entirely dismembered by the
directions for a fowl, No. 16. Black and moor-game are trussed and
served like pheasants. The breasts of both are very fine eating, and
the thigh of the black-cock is highly esteemed.
No. 16. A BOILED FOWL.