Institute of Pacific Relations

Cooperation or Starvation in LuzonAuthor(s): Catherine PorterSource: Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 11, No. 5 (Mar. 9, 1942), pp. 66-68Published by: Institute of Pacific RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3022759 .

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66 FAR EASTERN SURVEY

of Sakhalin. Its eastern shore, south from 52? parallel, is never frozen?a rare characteristic in these regions. Across the island is the Russo-Japanese frontier. This is the nearest land approach to the island empire. Sakhalin is rich in oil, coal and timber, so badly needed

by Japan. It guards the approaches to Nikolaevsk on the Amur. Baikal Bay, on the western side of the northern tip of the island, though frozen over in win?

ter, is a well sheltered port with loading facilities. It is connected by rail with Okha, the oil-producing city of Sakhalin, near the eastern shore, and it is only 62 miles from the mouth of the Amur.

Nikolaevsk on the Amur is an important river port. The Amur here is 15 miles wide, but a sand bar at the mouth of the river, 28 miles from Nikolaevsk, makes transshipment to river steamers necessary. Farther up the Amur on the left bank of the river is Komsomol'sk, the terminus of the railway, a young city with huge shipyards and munitions factories. Sup? plies from the United States destined for the Far Eastern Soviet Army could be reloaded to river steam? ers at the mouth of the river and then proceed up the river to Komsomol'sk or even to Khabarovsk, 610 miles from the estuary. The river at Nikolaevsk is frozen over half of the year; at Khabarovsk, to the

southwest, it is frozen about 150 days. In the winter, freight could be carried to Komsomol'sk by truck.

Ayan, a small settlement on the Okhotsk Sea (56? 29' north latitude), has a very good harbor, nearly a mile long and equally wide at the entrance; the depth varies from 20 to 125 feet. The bay is sheltered except at the south, where winds are light. The bay is frozen at the end of November (according to some sources, at the end of December) and the ice begins to thaw at the end of April. The tide in the bay is 10 ft. high. Ayan is over 100 miles from Nelkan on the Maya, the navigable tributary of the Aldan. The gold mines of the Aldan are connected by a good modern road with the Amur. Thus Ayan could become an important source of incoming supplies for the army on the middle Amur.

The roads in winter are usually along the frozen

rivers, and the winters here are very long, while the subsoil is permanently frozen. The chief difficulty lies in crossing the Dzhugudzhur range, where the passes are from 3,100 to 4,400 feet high. Another port, Eikan, near Ayan, might be more convenient in this respect because the passes there are lower and not so steep. Return cargo on these routes would be gold and furs.

If the Baikal-Amur trunk line is near completion, Chumikan in the southwest corner of the Okhotsk Sea

might become an important port, because it would be the nearest port to this railway. The Okhotsk Sea is difficult of navigation, however, with ice floe moving from December to April in the south and from Novem?

ber to June in the north, with heavy gales and fre-

quent fogs. Moreover a chain of Japanese islands, the

Kuriles, stretching from Kamchatka to Hokkaido, guards the approaches to this sea. This obstacle is less important than it may appear, because the islands are uninhabitable and presumably unfortified and the Japanese could not now fortify them all?there are too many of them. Distances between some of the islands are as great as 60 miles. If German and British vessels succeed in passing through heavily guarded narrow straits such as those of Dover, passing between some of these islands would be comparatively easy.

It would seem, then, that the problem of keeping the Soviet Union supplied is one which can be solved. The importance of this task to the Allied cause cannot be exaggerated. The tragedy of 1915 when the Russians were defeated because of their tremendous inferiority in armaments should not be repeated. The eastern front in Europe engages at least five million men of the German armies. Keeping the routes of supplies open and sending to the Soviet Union the maximum

possible amount of the tools of war across the bridge of ships will be a tremendous contribution to the final Allied victory.

Cooperation or Starvation

in Luzon

Behind the staunch resistance of General Mac- Arthur's troops on Bataan can be seen the resistance of a large body of the Filipino people. Most eloquent evidence of this comes from the pleas of the Japanese as reported in American communiques?pleas that the

Filipinos return to their farms and harvest their crops. No food will be imported, the Japanese announce, and the people face starvation if their crops are allowed to rot.

Even before December 8, the food situation?and that means principally rice*?in Luzon was none too

good. Because of a devastating drought in the big rice

provinces of central Luzon, total Philippine produc? tion in the crop year 1940-41 amounted to 52J4 million cavanes of palay (rough rice), compared with the banner crop of the previous year, 56^ million cavanes. Last August, estimates of carry-over and imports gave the country a total of 54.9 million cavanes for the 1940-41 crop year. Annual consumption, in terms of

rough rice, was estimated at 55 million cavanes. Thus additional imports were necessary to meet the popu- lation's needs, and no local carry-over was in sight for the 1941-42 crop year.

In spite of the government's campaign for increased food production, which was reported to be successful

* For two-thirds of the Philippine population, rice is the staple food

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MARCH 9, 1942 67

in extending crop areas and increasing plantings of short-term crops, the rice crop suffered again from natural causes. Heavy floods last September damaged the standing rice in central Luzon. (Luzon produced 60% of the previous rice crop, 70% in 1938.) Nueva

Ecija alone lost at least 250,000 cavanes; this fore- most rice province had produced nearly 9 million cavanes in 1938, and only half of that amount in 1940-41. Typhoons, floods and pests affected rice else- where in the island. Sorsogon, at the southeastern

extremity of the island, reported additional damage from rats to its standing crops. Camarines Sur was

making frantic appeals in November for harvesters; farmhands had abandoned the fields, passing up the offer of sharing a third or a half of the harvest, pre- ferring the good wages which were being paid in army camps. Cash looked more attractive than rice in November.

Months before the outbreak of war in the Pacific, the Philippines was casting about for new sources of rice imports. Japan, with a domestic rice shortage threatening its people, was taking the bulk of Thai- land's and Indo-China's rice (see "War and Further India's Rice," Far Eastern Survey, Aug. 25, 1941). These had been the chief sources upon which the

Philippines had depended formerly for imports. Short?

age of shipping space aggravated the situation. Before the end of November, however, some 280,000 cavanes of rice had been imported from Burma, and by that time harvesting of the 1941-42 crop was under way in some of the provinces. In addition, over 12,000 cavanes of corn were imported from Java at the end of last

summer, to ensure an ample supply for the three mil? lion Filipinos whose staple food is corn.

Since March 1941, the Civilian Emergency Admin- istration had been buying and storing food. Canned

foods, meat, fish and milk were purchased in the United States to the value of one million dollars (P2 million). A daily food rationing plan to be fol- lowed in event of war was announced some months before December. Two weeks after the Philippines was invaded, it was reported from Washington that the country was prepared to withstand a blockade for

many months, as far as food was concerned. How much of this food fell into the hands of the Japanese, how much was destroyed by fires and bombing, how much the withdrawing defense forces were able to salvage, is not known. Reports from Bataan indicate that the American and Filipino troops still have plenty of food, though not in great variety.

Particular attention had been given to increasing food crops, not only rice and corn but other vegetables. A special fund of P835,000 was appropriated early in 1941 for this purpose and for improvement of the work of the bureau of animal industry. Planting of varied food crops was emphasized in those areas chosen last

spring as reception centers for evacuees from Manila.

Many of these areas were in the province of Rizal, outside of Manila, now presumably under complete Japanese control. Several thousand hectares of new land had been planted to rice, and in August it was

reported that thousands of cavanes had already been harvested and stored there. With additional new crops of beans, corn and other vegetables on the hillsides, in back yards and in school gardens, the authorities felt that the food situation was satisfactory.

In time of peace, there was a constant interchange of commodities among the islands of the Philippines. Crop shortages in Luzon might have been met by imports from the south. Rice production had increased in Mindanao and in almost all of the other islands, so that deficiencies in the Luzon granary might have been partially supplied from other domestic sources. Hence the outlook for the whole country was not too

gloomy. Then came the war. Major Japanese landings on

Lingayen Gulf in the early weeks of the war resulted in heavy land fighting in Pangasinan, second largest rice growing province in the archipelago, and in sub-

sequent operations in Tarlac, Pampanga and Bulacan, other leading rice growers. Japanese troops fighting their way westward and northward from Atimonan and Mauban passed through the fertile rice regions of Laguna, Cavite and Rizal. In some instances, the harvesters continued to work in the fields, but later

dispatches reported that many farmers fled to the mountains or crowded into Manila.

The long weeks of fighting on the Bataan peninsula have converted the rice and sugar fields there into

battlegrounds and graveyards. Bombing operations, in addition to destroying crops or making harvest impos- sible in many parts of Luzon, fired big rice warehouses of the National Rice and Corn Corporation in Nueva

Ecija, and in Manila. Small wonder, then, that by the middle of February

food and money were reported scarce in Manila. Rice which formerly sold for 5 cents a package was reported as selling at 25 cents. Pitifully small rice rations to American prisoners?Americans had not formerly con- sumed much rice?were an added drain on the supply. The Japanese in the island, reported as numbering between 100,000 and 200,000, probably fared well dur?

ing the first weeks of occupation, but stocks were now

running out and new supplies were evidently not

forthcoming. Hence the plea for cooperation from the Luzon farmer.

Although the other islands are cloaked in almost

complete silence, it is clear that inter-island transport of civilian goods is almost out of the question, as far as Luzon is concerned. With the Japanese in control of most of the strategic ports in Luzon, and with their

ships and planes operating around the coast. Luzon

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68 FAR EASTERN SURVEY

is cut off from her sister islands. Imports of rice from the important granary of Panay would demand Jap? anese supervision and control?but there has been no hint of Japanese activity there, beyond bombardment of the port of Iloilo early in the war.

Some exchange of goods may be carried on between the central islands and with northern Mindanao, where resistance to the Japanese was reported late in Janu? ary. Panay may be able to supply rice deficiencies in

Negros; the shipping problem would be comparatively simple. Mindanao will probably be able to feed its

population; progress had been reported last autumn in encouraging the planting of home gardens by the Moros. Good rice harvests were expected in Cotabato. The areas not yet controlled by the Japanese may be able to feed their population.

Here is an important question for the future. The

Filipinos have now had an opportunity to taste the first effects of Japanese conquest. According to the few accounts that trickle in, the new masters are

treating the Filipinos no more kindly than they have treated the Koreans, or the Formosans, or the Chinese. There are still in the islands Filipinos who remember the early days of American occupation, when Ameri? cans bought food from the farmers and paid for it

generously. The Japanese have looted shops and homes, they have confiscated what they could for their own

use, they have even driven farmers from their homes. Now they are begging them to return.

Will hunger drive the farmer to produce crops for himself and his family?and his Japanese policeman? Will the Japanese be able to maintain a large enough police force to ensure that the harvests are gathered? and shared with them? Can the Japanese, if they are able to bring in food from other sources, afford to let the Filipinos starve? They will certainly not be able to supply Japanese laborers to bring the Philippine fields into production, for Japan Proper is already feel?

ing a labor shortage. In the long run, hunger will become the foe of victor and vanquished alike.

CATHERINE PORTER.

NEW BOOKS ON THE

PACIFIC AREA

POST-WAR WORLDS. By P. E. Corbett. I.P.R. Inquiry Series. New York: International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1942. $2.00. Professor Corbett has successfully correlated a shrewd analysis

of international thought with his own positive contribution to the study of post-war problems. It is clear, he says, that the failure of the League of Nations was in large measure due to the unwillingness of its members to subordinate the sovereignty of the state to the welfare of the universal society. Yet to relate the interests of the peoples of the Far East with those of the West, to break down the barriers of nationalism and out-dated legal

theory, is a task not easily simplified within the inelastic pattern of a "world federation." Instead, he visualizes a loose associa- tion of states grouped around regional or other special interests combined with the beginnings of a "world commonwealth."

The book is unique in being a critical survey of the various schemes so far set forth for post-war planning, and has the additional value of bringing the problems of the Far East into the pattern of a well-ordered peace.

CRISIS IN THE PHILIPPINES. By Catherine Porter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942. $1.50. This greatly enlarged and revised version of Miss Porter's

earlier I.P.R. pamphlet, Philippine Emergency, is by all odds the most useful and readable book in its field. Besides being the only really up-to-date account of the Philippines on the eve of the Japanese attack, it is one of the few books to examine the basic economic problems of the Filipinos?problems that will still need urgent attention when America's promise to redeem the liberty of the islands is fulfilled.

JAPAN'S INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH. By Kate L. Mitchell. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942. $1.25. At a time when Japan's horrifying military successes are

dominating the headlines, Miss Mitchell's sober appraisal of Japan's industrial sinews of war is peculiarly valuable. Her con- cise survey uses the most recent available sources received before the war began, and covers developments in Korea, Formosa, Manchuria and the occupied areas of China as well as Japan Proper. The study constitutes part of an even more important forthcoming book, The Industriali2ation of the Western Pacific, which Miss Mitchell has written for the I.P.R. Inquiry Series.

THE JAPANESE ENEMY: His Power and His Vulnerability. By Hugh Byas. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942. $1.25. In this concise little volume, Mr. Byas succeeds in dissipating

many Western misconceptions concerning Japan and the Jap? anese. Disclaiming statistical knowledge of her supplies of war goods, he nevertheless is convinced, from years of first-hand observation, that Japan is well prepared for her struggle against the United States (upon whom ultimate responsibility for suc- cess in the Pacific essentially rests), and that she entered the war sure of at least a 50 - 50 chance for victory. He discounts completely the theory that Japan has been forced into war by economic needs, and places the blame upon the expansionist policies of Japanese military forces. He concludes that while eventually Japan will be conquered, her defeat will be neither quick nor easy of accomplishment.

FAR EASTERN SURVEY BOARD OF EDITORS: Catherine Porter, Chairman; Kurt Bloch, Dorothy Borg, Miriam S. Farley, William W. Lockwood. RESEARCH ASSOCIATES: Robert W. Barnett, Deborah A. Hubbard, John H. Oakie, John R. Stewart, George E. Taylor, Virginia Thompson.

FORTNIGHTLY RESEARCH SERVICE PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN COUNCIL OF THE INSTITUTE OF PACIFIC RELA? TIONS, INC, 129 EAST 52ND STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION $2.50; SINGLE COPIES, 25 CENTS.

The Far Eastern Survey is a journal of fact. Responsibil? ity for interpreting the facts rests in each case with the individual author.

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