著者

尾形 洋一

出版者

公益財団法人史学会

雑誌

史學雜誌 (ISSN:00182478)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.86, no.8, pp.1183-1216, 1281-1280, 1977-08-20

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In 1930, revenues of the South Manchuria Railway Company sharply decreased, as a direct result of the World Economic Crisis. In Japan, however, many people attributed it to the "drive out SMR policy" of the Zhang Xue-liang government in collusion with the Nanjing government. And cries of crisis of Manchuria and Mongolia were heard. According to their claim, the Zhang Xue-liang government infringed on Japanese special interests, drafted plans of railway construction encircling SMR and step by step realized these plans ; these railways snatched freight from SMR. They counted the Northeast China Communication Committee as the prime mover of those plans. Then, what was the real situation of the committee? In the Northeast, construction of Chinese railways had been advancing since the beginning of the 1920's. Warlords in each province, launching into soybean transactions, laid the railways but there was little liaison among them. In 1924, in order to unify them and stand against the South Manchuria Railway and the Chinese Eastern Railway, the Communication Committee was organized. Nevertheless warlords who disliked having their vested rights violated ignored the Committee. In 1929, Zhang Xue-liang gave orders to reorganize the Committee after taking control of the Northeast government. Though Zhang and the Committee aimed at railway unification more earnestly, the management of each railway was still left in warlords' hands. Zhang even acquired their consent when he assassinated his political rivals. Not only that, the Committee had to deal with the offensive - demand for administrative rights over the Committee - of Nanjing government that intended to substantiate nominal domination of the Northeast. Under these circumstances, several measures of the Committee to improve railway business, those regarded as a "drive out SMR policy" in Japan, ended in total failure. Chinese railways met the World Panic while they were under poor management and suffered more serious damage than SMR. Economic integration in the Northeast was prerequisite to railway unification by the Committee. Ironically the World Economic Crisis gave the Zhang government a chance to set up a purchasing-transporting office for soybeans. The Zhang government was about to take initial steps in integration depending upon that office, when the Japanese Army picked off its possibilities.