The Japanese Regime
Background
"The Japanese Regime" is a section from Chapter Five, "Historical Perspectives," in the Handbook of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, 1948, published by the United States Navy. It deals with governance during the Japanese Period (1914-1941) and into the War in the Pacific (1941-1945).
The Japanese Regime
Government was originally placed under the Japanese Prime Minister, but was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs in December 1924. On 1 November 1942, it was transferred to the jurisdiction of the newly created Greater East Asia Ministry which had cognizance of all the conquered regions of Asia and the Pacific not under actual military government.
As originally constituted, the South Seas Government consisted of the following: A governor; his secretariat, concerned primarily with matters requiring official secrecy, such as confidential affairs of personnel, and those relating to statistics; a domestic affairs section, supervising local administration and police affairs; a financial affairs section, handling budgets, accounts, and public works; and a colonial section, dealing with industries and communications. In December 1924, reorganization increased the number of sections from three to five, as follows: Communications, colonization, police affairs, financial affairs, and miscellaneous (or general) affairs. In 1935, the secretariat was subdivided into two sections, a confidential affairs section and an archives section, and to these was added an investigation section in 1937. The various sections of the South Seas Government likewise underwent frequent revision, and in 1937, they were grouped under two newly established departments; namely, a department of domestic affairs and a department of economic development (or colonization).
The governor resided at Koror, where, with his staff of administrators, he coordinated government activities throughout the scattered mandate. His authority derived from legislation passed by the Japanese Government in April 1922. In matter of general administration he was responsible to the Minister of Overseas Affairs; in matters of mails and telegraphs to the Minister of Communications; in currency banking and customs duties to the Minister of Finance; and in standards of weights and measures to the Minister of Commerce and Industry. Within the mandate he exercised complete executive, legislative, and judicial power, subject only to veto by the Minister of Overseas Affairs.
Regional administration was carried by way of six districts, each controlled by a branch government or bureau. These districts correspond closely to the divisions used later by the incoming Americans, except that the Marshalls formed one district instead of two, and the two westernmost atolls of the Marshalls, Eniwetok, and Ujelang, were included in the adjacent Ponape district.
Under the South Seas government, each of the six branch governments was organized along the same general administrative pattern. Each district was headed by a branch governor or director, who was appointed by and was responsible to the governor at Koror for the execution of all laws and regulations and for the conduct of all administrative matters within his district. The branch governor was authorized to pass summary judgment in regard to certain offenses and, with respect to the detention of offenders, he had the same judicial-police power as a public prosecutor at a local court. According to prewar administrative blueprints the branch governments in Saipan, Palau, and Ponape were organized into four sections: a local affairs section, a financial affairs section, an economic development (or colonization) section, and a police affairs section. The branch governments at Yap, Truk, and Jaluit, however, had only three sections, the local affairs section assuming the functions handled separately elsewhere by the economic development section. Each section was technically under the management of a chief, appointed by the branch governor.
In actual practice the formal organization of the branch governments into sections served mainly as a guide to the functions to be performed, since these various functions were usually assigned to individual officials instead of actual administrative sections. Furthermore, it may be noted that in the Japanese Government system the chain of command was highly complex. There was no definite line of complete authority; i. e., the police department in a branch government was directly under the police department in the South Seas government as well as being under the command of the immediate branch governor; and following the chain on up, the police department in the South Seas government was directly under the police department in the Imperial Government of Japan, as well as being responsible to the governor of the South Seas government. This duplication occurred in every department in the government.
In addition to the six branch governments, a number of special institutions located at various centers were affiliated with the South Seas government. These included meteorological stations, agricultural experiment stations (Ponape and Palau), a civil engineering station (Saipan) and a products museum (Palau).
In November 1943, the number of branch governments was reduced from six to three: a northern area with headquarters at Saipan, a southern area with headquarters at Truk, and a western area with headquarters at Palau. These wartime changes were presumably dictated by military rather than civilian considerations. A vice admiral was appointed South Seas governor at this time.
Under the branch governments, local administration was organized through islanders appointed as officials according to standard provisions established by the South Seas government. Each branch government appointed local officials of two grades, known as village chiefs (so-soncho) and village headmen (soncho), and paid small monthly stipends for their services. Village chiefs were responsible to the branch governor of the district to which they belonged, and in theory were subject to supervision from the general affairs section of the branch government. A village chief nominally supervised the activities of the village headmen in the district assigned to him, but in actuality a real distinction seldom existed in the functions or authority of the two classes of native officials, and their spheres of influence really depended on local customs relative to chieftainship The designated official functions of the village chiefs, and presumably of village headmen as well, were to notify the members of their respective communities of all laws, regulations, and instructions, to forward to the higher authorities all applications, reports, and other communications originating in the local area, to collect poll taxes and similar levies, to report epidemics and other unusual events, and to submit a semiannual report on local conditions. Such officials were each supposed to be assisted by a village policeman and a village secretary, whose salaries they had to pay out of the modest stipends allowed them by the Japanese.
This looked on paper like a considerable degree of indirect rule, and appeared to follow the earlier German system. It is true that these official posts were customarily given to traditionally recognized leaders: so-soncho positions to paramount chiefs, and soncho positions to lesser chiefs. But in actual practice such individuals were allowed very little effective authority. As one of the Ponape chiefs said recently of his own position: “The Japanese policeman gave the orders; I was forced to see that they were carried out.” The Japanese rapidly increased the size of their administrative staff until all positions of real authority were held by Japanese nationals. Where the Germans at no time had more than 25 German officials in the area, the Japanese staff by 1935 totaled 944. Relatively few islanders were trained even for minor technical posts. Japanese administrative principles were clearly more those of direct rule and complete control.
In some instances chiefs recognized as of highest status by traditional usage were deliberately passed over in favor of less important individuals who would support the Japanese. Furthermore, various economic and other measures initiated by the Japanese tended to undermine the power and influence of the traditional leaders in practical spheres. Direct intervention in community affairs was undoubtedly much greater, however, in the zones of major Japanese settlement than in the outer area; the small isolated islands without resident Japanese were clearly least affected by Japanese control.
In 1932, the Japanese established special municipal administrations for several island areas with large Japanese populations. These administrations were based on a village council system similar to that prevailing in Japan. By vote of all males 20 years of age and over a local assembly was elected consisting of 12 to 24 members who served for 4 years without pay. The assembly elected a. mayor and was allowed to vote him a small salary. The mayor, with the aid of the assembly, dealt with such matters of local concern as public health and sanitation. This type of municipal government operated at Garapan, Chalan Kanoa, and three incorporated rural districts on Saipan, at the town of Tinian on Tinian Island, at Koror in the Palaus, at Dublon on Truk, and at Colony on Ponape.
The islands attracted much international attention from 1919-21 when the Pacific cable system centering on Yap was the subject of American- Japanese friction. The problem of safeguarding American rights to use the Yap-Shanghai section of the cable as an alternate to the American controlled Guam-Manila cable became critical in 1914 when the Japanese diverted their section through the Ryukyus. This action deprived Americans of the alternate route to the Philippines and China, and meant that whenever the Guam- Manila service was interrupted, American cable traffic had to pass through Japan. President Wilson had made certain reservations in regard to Yap and this cable situation at the peace-conference. But these were not a matter of record, and Japan subsequently denied that her League mandate to the Pacific islands was limited by any unwritten understandings. The United States, therefore, refused to acknowledge that the mandate thus granted by the League was valid.
This problem was finally resolved by a special treaty, signed in February 1922 as an adjunct of the Washington Conference, which acknowledged the special interests of the United States in unrestricted usage of the Pacific cable, together with certain contingent rights to establish communication facilities on Yap free from Japanese censorship. In return, the United States gave its consent to the Japanese mandate over the Pacific islands. Nevertheless, the recognition of American interests never went beyond formal acknowledgment. In 1925, when the cable service between Yap and Guam was interrupted, the United States Navy, when approached by the State Department on the subject, declared that since the cable was not a naval undertaking the Navy could take no action. As late as 1929 the United States still retained technical control over the Yap-Guam cable, but there is no indication that it was in effective operation at that time.
International attention was once more focused on the islands again in 1932 when rumors gained currency that Japan was fortifying some of the islands. Japan categorically denied these reports but successfully avoided international investigation. The fortifications issue soon became subordinate to Japan’s notice of withdrawal from the League of Nations and a resultant controversy over her right to continue as mandatory upon ceasing to be a member of the League. Because the League was in no position to take away the mandate from Japan, the latter kept the islands even after her League withdrawal became final in 1935, although she continued to submit annual reports to the League Council through 1938. At that time, the islands were defined by Japan as “an integral part of the Japanese Empire,” and were treated as a closed military area.
After 1935 the expansionist policies of Japan became the dominant factor in island affairs. Because of the shortages of raw materials within the Japanese Empire, intensive economic research and development was launched, and the agricultural, mineral, and marine industries were pushed forward under official sponsorship. The islands were flooded with military personnel and with Korean, Okinawan, and other labor for use in the construction of military fortifications. From 1935 on, until the islands were captured by the United States forces, little is known in detail concerning the actual governing policy followed by the Japanese administrators in the islands. The entire mandated area was virtually closed to all foreign traffic and little accurate information reached the outside world. What happened from 1941 demonstrated that during the intervening years the paramount objective had been the fitting out and fortification of the major islands in order that they could play their role in the military program to be embarked upon by the Japanese Government.
The islanders appear to have enjoyed extended economic prosperity, but their progress in political advancement was pushed into the background. Their services were used where it would benefit the Japanese, and where necessary they were removed from their former living sites to make way for the military. Ponapeans reported to the incoming Americans a Japanese postwar plan to take all Ponapeans to Kusaie, except those wanted as workers, and to resettle that large island with 50,000 Japanese nationals. As in earlier years, the Japanese paid considerable attention to health conditions, and provided limited educational facilities, emphasizing the learning of the Japanese language, indoctrination to Japanese “morals,” and vocational training.
In summary, the Japanese administration in the islands may be said to have passed through four phases: (1) Military government following occupation, 1914-18; (2) military control with civil assistance, 1918-22; (3) civil government, 1922-35; and (4) military domination of civil government, 1935-44. Japanese colonial policy could also be summarized in terms of four main objectives: (1) To develop the islands in an economic sense; (2) to prepare them as a place to which Japanese nationals could migrate as colonists, thus relieving population pressure in Japan; (3) to Japanize the islanders gradually through education and propaganda and by promoting cultural change; and (4) to establish offensive military, naval, and air bases in the islands in preparation for war.
