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In 1905, Karafuto (Southern Sakhalin) became Japan’s second formal colony and the most sparsely populated territory in the Japanese empire. Despite its peripheral location and small population the colony was of important economic value, boasting considerable natural resources such as marine products, coal, oil and timber. This combination of richness and remoteness meant that enterprises in the colony faced an acute labour shortage. This paper examines the ways that enterprises operating in Karafuto sought to circumvent this problem by analysing the recruitment, management and maintenance of labour in Karafuto’s forestry and construction industries. It is found that a degree of coercion emerged at worksites in the colony, as management struggled to hold onto its workforce for the entirety of a project; however, coercion was not the norm and was strongly associated with specific recruitment grounds. Utilizing contemporary social research, colonial newspaper reports, oral testimony and other sources this paper finds that recruits from further afield were more likely to be involved in incidents of abuse than those in close proximity to Karafuto. Local connections, strength in numbers and mutual dependence of workers from these areas and Karafuto-based recruiters for work/labour served to reduce levels of conflict between the two parties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article sets out to elucidate the role of Japanese Protestants in the education of Koreans during the early twentieth century. Scholarship has often assigned only marginal roles to Japanese Protestants within the history of Japanese imperialism, despite the remarkable success of western missionaries in Korea at the time. As imperial expansion progressed, Japanese Protestants intensified their efforts to take up a leading role in the education of Koreans in colonial Korea and in the metropole wishing to spearhead the assimilation of Koreans. By drawing on the colonial discourses of East Asian unity under Japanese leadership, Protestant churches strove to mediate and facilitate colonial policies in Korea. Yet there were also voices of dissent from prominent Japanese Protestants critical of the assimilation policies implemented by colonial authorities in Korea. This ambivalent stance of Protestantism towards Korea is further complicated by the fact that the Korean Young Men’s Christian Association in Tokyo served as an important venue of the Korean Independence Movement. Examining Christian magazines and journals of the time, this paper delves into the contentious debates among Japanese Protestants concerning the Korea Mission and the Japanese government’s strategy of assimilation through education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]