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 of 1915 as without "fundamental validity". They pointed out, moreover, that the Japanese attempted to reside and conduct business in all parts of Manchuria, although the treaty provision was limited to South Manchuria.

In view of the conflicting national policies and aims of China and Japan, it was almost inevitable that continuous and bitter controversies should arise over this treaty provision. Both countries admit that the situation was a growing irritant in their mutual relations up to the events of September 1931.

Closely associated with the right to reside and to do business in the interior of South Manchuria was the right to lease land, which was granted to Japanese by the Treaty of 1915 in the following terms: "Japanese subjects in South Manchuria may, by negotiation, lease land necessary for erecting suitable buildings for trade and manufacture or for prosecuting agricultural enterprises". An exchange of notes between the two Governments at the time of the treaty deﬁned the expression "lease by negotiation" to imply, according to the Chinese version. "a long-term lease of not more than thirty years and also the possibility of its unconditional renewal"; the Japanese version simply provided for "leases for a long term up to thirty years and unconditionally renewable". Disputes naturally arose over the question whether the Japanese land leases were, at the sole option of the Japanese, "unconditionally renewable".

The Chinese interpreted the desire of the Japanese to obtain lands in Manchuria, whether by lease, purchase, or mortgage, as evidence of a Japanese national policy to "buy Manchuria". Their authorities therefore very generally attempted to obstruct efforts of the Japanese to this end, and became increasingly active in the three or four years preceding September 1931, a period during which the Chinese "Rights-Recovery Movement" was at its height.

In making strict regulations against the purchase of land by the Japanese, their ownership of it in freehold, or their acquisition of a lien through mortgage, the Chinese authorities appeared to be within their legal rights, since the treaty granted only the privilege of leasing land. The Japanese, however, complained that it was not in conformity with the spirit of the treaty to forbid mortgages upon land.

Chinese officials, however, did not accept the validity of the treaty and consequently put every obstacle in the way of Japanese leasing land, by orders, provincial and local, calculated to make the leasing of lands to Japanese punishable under the criminal laws; by imposition of special fees and taxes payable in advance on such leases; and by instructions to local officials prohibiting them, under threat of punishment, from approving such transfers to Japanese.

In spite of these obstacles, great tracts of land have, as a matter of fact, not only been leased by the Japanese, but actually obtained in freehold—although the titles might not be recognised in a Chinese court—through outright purchase, or by the more usual means of foreclosing a mortgage. These mortgages on land have been obtained by Japanese loan operators, especially large loan associations, certain of which have been organised especially for the purpose of acquiring land tracts. The total area of lands leased to Japanese in the whole of Manchuria, and in Jehol, according to Japanese official sources, increased from about 80,000 acres in 1922–23 to over 500,000 acres in 1931. A small proportion of this total was in North Manchuria, where the Japanese had no legal right under Chinese law and international treaty to acquire land leases.

Due to the importance of this land lease issue, there were at least three attempts during the decade preceding 1931 to reach some agreement by direct Sino-Japanese negotiation. A possible solution, which there is reason to believe was under consideration, would have treated together the two subjects of land leasing and the abolition of extra-territoriality: in