—119—
All popular movements require some measure of organisation to be effective. The loyalty of all adherents to a common cause is never uniformly strong and discipline is required to enforce unity of purpose and action. Our conclusion is, that the Chinese boycotts are both popular and organised; that, though they originate in and are supported by strong national sentiment, they are controlled and directed by organisations which can start or call them off, and that they are enforced by methods which certainly amount to intimidation. While many separate bodies are involved in the organisation, the main controlling authority is the Kuomintang.
(2) Legality or otherwise of boycott methods.The second issue is whether or not, in the conduct of the boycott movement, the methods employed have always been legal. From the evidence collected by the Commission, it is difficult to draw any other conclusion than that illegal acts have been constantly committed, and that they have not been sufficiently suppressed by the authorities and the courts. The fact that these methods are mainly the same as those. used in China in olden days may be an explanation, but not' a justification. When in former days a guild elected to declare a boycott, searched the houses of suspected members, brought them before the Guild Court, punished them for a breach of rules, imposed fines and sold the goods seized, it acted in conformity with the customs of that time. Moreover, it was an internal affair of a Chinese community, and no foreigner was involved. The present situation is different. China has adopted a code of modern laws, and these are incompatible with the traditional methods of trade boycotts in China. The memorandum in which the Chinese Assessor has defended his country's point of view with regard to the boycott does not contest this statement, but argues that "the boycott. . . is pursued, generally speaking, in a legitimate manner". The evidence at the disposal of the Commission does not bear out this contention.
In this connection, a distinction should be made between the illegal acts committed directly against foreign residents in casu Japanese, and those committed against Chinese with the avowed intention, however, of causing damage to Japanese interests. As far as the former are concerned, they are clearly not only illegal under the laws of China but also incompatible with treaty obligations to protect life and property and to maintain liberty of trade, residence, movement and action. This is not contested by the Chinese, and the boycott associations, as well as the Kuomintang authorities, have tried, although they may not always have been successful, to prevent offences of this kind. As already stated, they have occurred less frequently during the present boycott than on previous occasions.[1]
With regard to illegal acts committed against Chinese, the Chinese Assessor observed on page 17 of his memorandum on the boycott:
"We would like to observe, in the first place, that a foreign nation is not authorised to raise a question of internal law. In fact, we find ourselves confronted with acts denounced as unlawful but committed by Chinese nationals in prejudice to other Chinese nationals. Their suppression is a matter for the Chinese authorities, and it seems to us that no one has the right of calling into account the manner in which the Chinese penal law is applied in matters where both offenders and sufferers belong to our own nationality. No State has the right of intervention in the administration of exclusively domestic affairs of another State. This is what the principle of mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and independence means."
- ↑ According to recent Japanese information, there were thirty-five instances in which goods belonging to Japanese merchants were seized and kept in detention by members of the Anti-Japanese Associations in Shanghai during the period from July 1931 to the end of December 1931. The value of the goods involved was estimated approximately at $287,000. Of these instances, in August 1932, five were reported as still remaining unsolved.
