Institute of Pacific Relations
The White Pony. An Anthology of Chinese Poetry by Robert PayneReview by: Victor PurcellFar Eastern Survey, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Feb. 9, 1949), p. 35Published by: Institute of Pacific RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3021856 .
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for the plantation industry was rather dark, and prior to 1934 the trend favored the peasant producer. Rubber was well on the way to becoming predominantly a product of peasant agriculture.
This changed greatly with the establishment of the interna? tional rubber regulation scheme in 1934. Mr. Bauer presents an impressive amount of evidence that the scheme favored the plantation industry and discriminated against the small peasant producer. He reports numerous instances in which authorities ignored completely the results of technical enquiries and chose rather to adhere to outdated concepts regarding the production capacity of Asiatic smallholders. Most notorious was the underestimate of the native rubber area in Indonesia. Both in Malaya and in Indonesia the burden of the rubber restriction fell on the shoulders of the mass of small producers, who were given a completely inadequate quota.
Not only did the smallholders suffer heavy losses of income in the past on account of the inequitable quota distribution but their whole future is now threatened by the planting pro- visions of the international rubber regulation scheme; these
provisions were still in force when the author visited Malaya in 1947. He points out that unless this restrictive policy is
changed the Malayan smallholders, for example, will be elim- inated within twenty years.
Mr. Bauer deals also with the rise of synthetic rubber, com-
pares costs of production of natural and synthetic rubber, and examines the outlook. A number of statistical appendices and notes round out this valuable study, which should make inter-
esting reading not only for Westerners interested in tropical agriculture, international commodity control schemes, and colonial policy in practice but also for Asiatic political leaders who in the past made many of the claims for which this book now supplies the evidence.
Yale University karl j. pelzer
THE WHITE PONY. An Anthology of Chinese Poetry. Edit- cd by Robert Payne. New York: John Day, 1947. 414 pp. $4.00.
Western pundits have for a century or so talked much about the beauty of Chinese poetry, but few have believed them. One can sympathize with the sceptics, for in translation Chinese poetry is too often flat, insipid, or obscure. Leggc's rendering of the Odes in "noble Protestant prose" (as some unconscious humorist has called it) is jejunity embedded with botanical names; Giles's verses are pedestrian. Modern trans- lators (e.g. Mrs. Ayscough) are often vivid, quaint, or charm-
ing, but one feels that they are "interpreting" rather than
construing. Even Dr. Waley, the most pleasing of all the
translators, we do not exempt from the suspicion. He offers us a marvel of pellucidity and Western cadences as a replica of something Chinese (e.g. the Tao Te Ching, which Chinese commentators have kneaded like mud for over two thousand
years). The truth secms to be that so much is lost when Chinese poetry is torn from the living sheath of the written character, and so much from the remoteness of the culture, that some process of interpreting is indispensable. Personally, however, if I haven't the Chinese to enjoy or puzzle over, I prefer to know, as near as may be, what the poet actually said.
Mr. Payne has had the bright idea of persuading a whole platoon of native scholars to produce literal translations of their poets in free verse. The result is an anthology which is more comprehensive than any hitherto published, and far more reliable for reference than any other collection.
In his introduction Mr. Payne proves that he himself is a
poet with a fine sense of language, but he is so swayed by changing impressions as to seem fickle and contradictory. For
example, he tells us on page xii that the Chinese "were never affected with too great a sadness," but on page xv they pro- duce poetry "with the wildest abandon of grief." On page xvii "death (to a Chinese) is a thing to be feared" and on
the following page we are told that none the less the Chinese
"did not fear death." This is a little giddying to the prosaic mind. But his remarks and his anthology are well worth while
all the same. victor purcell
THE ALLIED OCCUPATION OF JAPAN. By Edwin M.
Martin. New York: Stanford University Press, under the
auspices of the American Institute of Pacific Relations, 1948.
155 pp. $3.00.
Mr. Martin, until recently Chief of Occupied Area Economic
Affairs in the Department of State, has written a brief but
very useful pr?cis of occupational policy and its implementa- tion in Japan. This book is first in a series on postwar Japan
planned by the Institute of Pacific Relations. The author warns
readers not to expect an appraisal of successes and failures. As
he wisely says: "It is essential not to permit the perspective of
our great distance from Japan and our scanty information
about her people to oversimplify the difFerences among her
citizens in their reaction to their postwar problems, one of
which is of course the occupation." Such opinions as he ex-
presses, fortunately with considerable freedom, are cautiously
optimistic regarding SCAP accomplishments. The treatment is divided into six chapters, each introduced
by excerpts from relevant sections of the documents which
control Allied operations. Major attention is given to economic measures and to the depressed circumstances of industry, labor and agriculture which condition their success. Mr. Martin considers that "orthodox" reparations policy is hardly prac- ticable for Japan and indicates that this issue is intertwined with that of the future of Japanese big business. He traces
clearly the several steps taken to break up the monopolies, points up the difficulties involved, and remarks that anti-
monopoly efforts in the United States have shown that "those interested in extending their areas of control seem to find two new doors for every one that is closed." The Japanese, he
states, have given "an incredibly incompetent pcrformance" in the struggle for economic revival, one which cannot be ex- cused on alleged grounds of interference by occupational meas? ures such as the purge or the attack on the zaibatsu. Perhaps it is explained by the effect upon incentive of Japanese knowl-
edge that Allied policy contemplates keeping Japan's economic
system permanently under restrictions which would be rejected for themselves by Allied economies.
One finds clarifying factual and interpretative statements on a large number of topics: how policy was formulated initially, how SCAP meshes with the Far Eastern Commission, how the
liquidation of military forces and the repatriation of Japanese abroad were carried out, how the members of GHQ, through- out the several sections, seek to persuade, rather than to drive, toward reform legislation, how the government and political parties are developing, and others. Mr. Martin avoids certain
issues, e.g. those which have arisen between SCAP and the
FEC, SCAP policy toward rightism, and the fundamental one of the practicability of an attempt by Western civilizations to set patterns for older Oriental peoples. "Within the limits set for himself he presents valuable data with admirable ob-
jectivity.
University of Minnesota harold s. quigley
FEBRUARY 9, I 949 35
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