893.114 Narcotics/848
The Consul at Tientsin (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 6.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s telegram of August 2, 1 p.m., and to my reply of August 24, 9 a.m.23 on the above subject, and in that connection, to submit the following report.
In its issue of June 16, 1934, the I Shih Pao, a vernacular paper published in Tientsin and noted for its courageous editorial policy, [Page 367] reported that on the afternoon of the June 14 a squad of thirty Japanese soldiers, led by an officer whose name in Chinese is given as K’u Wei, surrounded the Magistracy at Ch’angli, and demanded of the Magistrate, one Liang Yu, that he immediately refund the sum of more than Yuan $4,900 representing the money exacted as fines from the dealers in and users of opium and from gamblers and the operators of gambling houses. The report asserts that, failing such return, the Magistrate was to be shot to death.
The report goes on to say that after some discussion, however, it was agreed that the Magistrate should be given three days of grace, within which he was to hand over Yuan $1,000 and four packages of opium, and the troops were withdrawn.
Liang is said then to have telegraphed the Chairman of the Hopei Provincial Government, General Yu Hsueh-chung, for instructions, at the same time deputing Li Wei-T’ing, the Chief of the Ch’angli Hsien Judicial Department, to T’angshan to report the affair to T’ao Shang-Ming, the Special Administrator of the Luan-Yu Area, with the request that it be reported to the Japanese Commander at Shanhaikuan, Ch’uan Ho, the direct superior of the officer in command of the Japanese troops at Ch’angli. It was also said that a Japanese Vice Consul was ordered to T’angshan, and accompanied T’ao to Shanhaikuan.
A second and more complete report of the affair published in the issue of the I Shih Pao for June 17, described the incident as being in part due to friction with the Japanese officials at Ch’angli over the detention of two suspected criminals by the Magistrate, and indicated that a settlement was reached after conference between the Japanese Vice Consul and T’ao Shang-Ming at T’angshan and after the Vice Consul’s visit to Ch’angli. T’ao then, according to this report, sent Li Wei-T’ing to Shanhaikuan with a letter addressed to the Chief of the Bureau of Public Safety there, requesting that the head of the Japanese Military at Shanhaikuan be asked to order the Japanese troops in Ch’angli to desist from such acts in the future.
It is of interest to note that the report quoted states that the Magistrate, Liang Yu, is an American returned student.
As of possible interest, full translations of both of the reports quoted above are enclosed.24
Information given on August 23 to Vice Consul Ward of this office by a member of the Ch’angli gentry in Tientsin on private business indicates that these reports are substantially true. The informant stated that on June 14 thirty fully armed Japanese soldiers, officered by a captain or first lieutenant, appeared at the Magistrate’s office, [Page 368] and threatened his life, demanding, as the newspaper report states, the return of the fines exacted and opium seized from local opium smokers during a vigorous campaign which the Magistrate had been waging against the vice of opium smoking.
The informant asserted that this drive of Liang’s had the full support of all people of standing in the district, and that it was directed against a very serious situation which existed not only in Ch’angli Hsien, but throughout the demilitarized zone. In Ch’angli Hsien alone there are, he said, over 100 dealers in opium, morphine and heroin, most of whom are either Japanese or Korean. The shops in which these drugs are dispensed are called Yang Hang, “Foreign Firms”, and even those owned by Chinese claim exemption from Chinese jurisdiction on the ground that they are the property of Japanese nationals.
It would thus appear impossible for the Chinese authorities to act directly against the individuals engaged in the sale of drugs in Ch’angli, and Liang subsequently concentrated on eradicating the use of the drug. In this, Mr. Ward’s informant stated, Liang met with some measure of success. Agents of the Magistrate were stationed at points close to the larger known opium shops, and Chinese leaving such places who showed signs of having been smoking opium were arrested, searched, and subjected to fines. Such drugs as they may have purchased were confiscated. This scheme was followed for over four months, and resulted in such a sharp falling off in the business of the “Foreign Firms” concerned that Liang felt encouraged to extend his campaign to include gambling.
In this connection the informant pointed out that the natural penchant of the Chinese for gambling has for some time afforded disreputable Japanese and Koreans in Ch’angli with a lucrative source of income, and he stated that the number of gambling houses has increased since the establishment of the de-militarized zone. They are, he asserted, not honestly conducted, and are looked on by the better elements in Ch’angli as being little better than opium dens, several establishments including both under the same roof.
In the vigorous prosecution of his campaign Mr. Liang brought upon himself the not unnatural ire of the dispensers of drugs and the owners of gambling houses in his district, and they, being by nationality predominantly Japanese, sought the assistance of the Japanese military present in Ch’angli. The attempted seizure was the result. The informant stated that the drugs which had been confiscated and the fines exacted were in fact handed over to the Japanese military, although the newspaper reports noted above indicate that this was not done.
[Page 369]This informant did not believe that any of the drugs seized had been taken from dealers themselves, and he stated that the fines were those exacted from the smokers and not from the dealers. He believed that the amount of the fines, including those collected for gambling, easily exceeded Yuan $4,000, but he did not know the exact amount.
The heroin being sold in Ch’angli is, he stated, believed by the Chinese there to be manufactured in Korea, and to be brought into Ch’angli through Shanhaikuan. An official of the Tientsin Municipal Government, questioned on this point during a discussion of the subject, stated however that he believed Dairen to be the chief place of manufacture of the drugs now being distributed in the de-militarized zone.
Certain Chinese from T’angshan and Ch’ienan Districts have corroborated the statement of the informant quoted that, from the Chinese point of view at least, the Japanese authorities in the demilitarized zone are more or less openly assisting their nationals in the distribution throughout that area of opium and its products, morphine and heroin. Although the apparently hopeless efforts of the Chinese authorities to cope with this menace are believed to be based, as they are claimed to be, on the real horror which responsible Chinese feel of the drug itself, and the feeling that the Japanese are using the propagation of the drug habit among Chinese as a means of destroying the virility of the race, it must also be added, as the Chinese themselves say frankly enough, that there probably is, in the steps taken by Mr. Liang, and in similar measures taken by other Chinese authorities throughout this district, an anti-Japanese bias.
In connection with the above report, it may be stated that because of the difficulty involved in finding reliable sources of information, the Consulate General felt at the time of the Chi’angli incident that it would be more practicable to include it in a report on the narcotics situation in this district which it hoped to be able to prepare at a later date, than to make it the subject of a separate report.
Respectfully yours,