Inscribed to an American reporter
Building up Manchuria ... Illustrated
Tokyo: Herald of Asia, n.d., [1938]. First edition in English, 8vo, pp. [4], 247; portrait frontispiece of the author and 26 photographic illustrations on rectos and versos of 16 plates; dust jacket with shallow losses at top and bottom of spine and corners; a near fine copy in a very good jacket. This copy inscribed "To Miss Jane Howard, As a souvenir of our meeting again in Tokyo & in appreciation of the kind reception accorded by her parents at New York in the spring of 1933. Tokyo, Oct. 4, 1938. Y. Matsuoka." Matsuoka (1880-1946) was a Japanese diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Empire of Japan during the early stages of World War II. He is best known for his defiant speech at the League of Nations in 1933, ending Japan's participation in that organization, thereby isolating that country. He was also one of the architects of the Tripartite Pact and the Japanese–Soviet Neutrality Pact in the years immediately prior to the outbreak of war. Schooled in Portland and Oakland he took a law degree at the University of Oregon. He returned to Japan in 1902 and joined the Foreign Ministry in 1904. He was appointed to the Japanese consulate in Shanghai, and was subsequently attached to the Governor-General of the Kwantung Leased Territory, where he became acquainted with Gotō Shinpei, then president of the South Manchurian Railway and Yamamoto Jotaro, then working for Mitsui in developing the natural resources of Manchuria. He became a director of the South Manchurian Railway Company in 1922. In 1927, Matsuoka was promoted to the position of Vice-President of the South Manchurian Railway Company. However, following the Manchurian Incident of 1931, the establishment of Manchukuo and the Lytton Report to the League of Nations condemning Japan’s actions, Matsuoka was drawn back into the arena of foreign affairs to head Japan’s delegation to the League of Nations in 1933. Matsuoka gained international notoriety for a speech condemning the League of Nations and announcing Japan’s withdrawal, leading the Japanese delegation out of the League's assembly hall (excerpted from a long Wikipedia entry). Jane Howard, to whom this book was presented, was the sister of Jack R. Howard, president and general editorial manager of the E. W. Scripps Co. In the early 1930s he worked as a reporter and copy editor on the Japan Advertiser in Tokyo and the Shanghai Evening Post in China. Jane Howard (later Jane Howard Perkins) was a reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser and, after the interview referred to in the dedication, she published an editorial in the paper on October 13, 1938 calling Matsuoko "the Saviour of Asia" and praising the Japanese occupation of Manchuria as "an economic blood transfusion." She traveled to the Far East on Pan Am's maiden trans-Pacific clipper flight, where she interviewed Mme. Chang Kai-Shek and gave an eyewitness account of the Japanese bombing of China. Item #45929
Price: $2,500.00
