Manchuria : land of opportunities

New York : South Manchuria Railway Co., 1922. First edition. Octavo, original buckram-backed papered boards (lightly marked), spine with printed paper title label (sunned), pp. 113, illustrated with numerous black and white photographic plates, diagrams, folding colour map at rear; some pale foxing to preliminaries, otherwise internally clean, a very good copy; loosely enclosed is a single-page typed letter on the South Manchuria Railway Company (New York office) letterhead, dated November 17 1922, signed by the mining engineer S. Sugihara and addressed to a Mr. Ayer, expressing the hope that the book will “prove very interesting”.

The South Manchuria Railway Company was a large National Policy Company of Japan whose primary function was the operation of railways in northeastern China. However, it was involved in nearly every aspect of economic, cultural and political life in Manchuria – from power generation to agricultural research – earning it the reputation of “Japan’s East India Company in China”. Founded in 1906, it was later dissolved in 1945 by order of the American occupation authorities stationed in Japan.