1940-12-19 — Page 7

By John Groth in "PM"

Japan's East Indies Threat

Reports that Japan is preparing | would more naturally oc-another move for a stronger hold

on French Indo-China,

coupled

cur to the Redistributor with other developments bearing of the World than to con-

in a like direction indicate that it

vert the country into a European struggle distinct

may not be possible to keep the

protectorate, with gaulei-the Asiatic. ter, Gestapo agents and a technical staff to enforce the ban on avalanches?

from

character because of the Although a move that may be

official | which was paid out in bribes to aid which Germany and Italy sent shifty Chinese politicians, who construed US of 201 appeasing nature has been reported in the to Generalissimo Francisco Franco failed to deliver the political and agreement between Arglo-Ameri-and the Soviet Union to the Re-economic concessions which they cari and Japanese oil interests to Public, while thousands of French, had promised. Is a nation afflicted increase Japan's imports of British, American, and refugee A period of relative stability, in with hurricanes? Give it from the Netherlands East Indies, anti-Fascist volunteers fought in trends of an opposite nature are One may cite only too visible.

iron and high grade gasoline for

Japan,

oil

general

ន

threat from the Axis powers that they also seemed to be eliminated, so far

active military opposition to Japan's ad- vance was concerned.

Those who were in Japan at the time could see how each new alarm bell in Europe was a signal to further Japanese advances. When war loomed as imminent on the eve of the Munich Agreement, Japan prepared a picked expedi- tionary force for the attack on Far Eastern affairs, as regards the Canton which had hitherto been the Republican armies. After relations between foreign powers deferred because of regard for with interests in China, was in- British suscept'bilities. It is not augurated by the Washington improbable that, if the: war had treaties of 1922. But in 1931 the actually broken out, this expedi- Japanese military leaders made tionary force would have tried to the discovery that they could up- | “rush" Hong Kong, the great Bri- set the Washington treaty struc-tish commercial centre and mill- ture, so far as Manchuria was con- tary and naval base. The con- cerned, without incurring any clusion of the Munich pact may consequences more serious than have caused the rumoured idea of moral condemnation.

attacking Hong Kong to be dropped.

By William Henry Chamberlin

a protective occupation. Is it wracked by land- the American embargoes on scrap slides, droughts, volcanic Japan, the warning aldressed by eruptions or a plague of the State Department to Ameri-

car residents in the Far East to In The Christian Science Monitor locusts? Bestow upon it leave, the threatening tripartite an armoured column, con-pact between

Germany, Spain came Austria, Czechoslova- and Italy, the recurring rumours kia, Albania. centration camps, ration of an Anglo-American arrange-

Japan has always taken close cards and the inestimablement for the joint use of Singa account of the European situation blessings of Herr Goeb-base and other Far Eastern naval in framing its plans for expansion bels's organisation. It is the standard, indeed it is the only, solution.

It is Herr Hitler's one Solution for all the ills the

There has always been an in- tirnate connection between war in the Far East and war-and the threat of war-in Europe. Techni- cally the current war began in September, 1939. But the con- tirent has never really been

at

Japan's Opportunity

Before Japan entered. on its bigger adventure, the attempt to bring all China under Japanese control, in 1937, the world situar tion was carefully studied on the basis of reports from Japanese embassies in Europe and America. The auguries seemed favourable.

Seizure Of Hainan

large island off the scuth-eastern The occupation of Hainan, the coast of China, a step equally dis- tasteful to the Britishi in Hong Kong and to the French in Indo- China, took place iri February,

world is heir to; and since Peace since Signor Mussolini in- during results because Japan did America was strongly isolationist. 1939, when British and French at-

on the mainland of Asia, Europe's difficulty has been regarded as Japan's opportunity. It was no coincidence that Japan presented its 21 demands" to China in the spring of 1915, when Europe was | absorbed in the first World War.

The 21 demands" led to no-en- va ded Ethiopia in September, not feel strong enough to back up Russia had just shot its most tention was concentrated on the

its claims with arrned force. 1935.

In- talented generals and seemed un- Mediterranean crisis that seemed Scope Of Spain's War deed, the chief net result of this likely to risk a war. Great Bri

certain to arise after the ending After the Ethiopian campaign Japanese excursion into power tain and France were so preoc-of the Spanish Civil War. Japan came the Spanish Civil War, politics was that the Island Em-cupied with the ever threatening celebrated the new crisis after

international pire lost a good deal of money |Spanish situation and with

the Adolph Hitler which assumed an

The Swiss Conscience

-By- Henry W. Steiger

moun-

marched into Prague by seizing the Spratly. Islands, off the southern coast of Indo-China, a small acquisition territorially, but useful as an ad- vanced submarine base.

Japan reacted to the actual out- aready put forward by Zwingli. break. of the European war more Calvin was not Swiss, but he lived soberly than might have been ex- in Switzerland, and in the Swisspected. This was because of the atmosphere gave to the ideas of alarm and dismay which the con→ the Reformation the shape which clusion of the German-Soviet pact was accepted by the Puritans in caused in Tokyo. The Cabinets of and later in General Abe and, Admiral Yonai America,

were relatively, moderate in their

the It is quite obvious that Switzer--| attitude toward land has had a great influence on Powers.

western development of the thought. It is therefore important to discover the nucleus of Swiss thinking.

Western

of France

he is going to reorganise the world, divide it up, re- arrange its populations and bless it with a new order for the next thou- sand years, he will cer- tainly have to attend to its various natural calami-

Switzerland has many friends' ties. Perhaps there will

in the world, and they are anxi- be a ceremony on the sub-ously following the development war with the hope that ject in the Chancellery, of this

Switzerland can preserve her with Ribbentrop and freedom.

Great Britain. It is of importance to underfluence, together with the sound Ciano in full uniform and stand why Switzerland is a free-

the free the cameras clicking as country and to know whether: she mentality of

taineers, must be considered as the avalanches are formally deserves to be free. This question background of the foundation of is. the more interesting because

Switzerland. After successful de-

But after the fall; abolished.

about 70 per cent of the popula-

fence of the new Confederation

there was a new upsurge of Jap- To be sure, in the case tion (and the orginal part) speaks and further success in other wars,

anese aggressiveness, based on a German dialect and was a part the Swiss State. of Norway there are ill- of the Holy Roman Empire until

grew strong

the theory that Germany would enough that it no longer required The Swiss wants to act according win the war and that Japan was natured persons (Oslo 1499 and theoretically until 1649 the protection of the German em- to his consciente. For him, he, as the natural heir of British, French,

A most astonishing event was dispatches severely re- the foundation of the Swiss Feror, and a war decided Swiss in-

well as everyone elso, has his own and Netherlands colonial posses- dependence in 1499;

conscience and he claims, the right. sions in the Orient. The present prove them) who hint Federation in 1291, in the year

Fumimaro Rudolf von Hapsburg passed on. Not long after the separation to follow its direction. The free- cabinet of Prince that perhaps it was not on a small sheet of parchment, from a temporal monarchical dom the Swiss claims is not a re- Konoye, with American-educated nature but the Norwe-which still exists, we find the sub power, the emperor, there follow-volt against discipline; on the Yosuke Matsuoka as Foreign Min- -gians who started the stance of a constitution in thirteen ed the separation of the Swiss contrary it is the freedom to act ister, is probably more closely from the spiritual monarchical according to principle, Such think identified with the Army than any avalanches rolling. Even We may ask how it was possible power, the Pope. The reformationing is not satisfied by abstractions, Cabinet in recent Japanese "his- so, one still wonders whe- that in the Middle Ages, when no- of Switzerland by Ulrich Zwingli but calls for action. Here is a tory

The interaction between. Jap- body thought, about constitutions, is more or less independent of fundamental difference from Ger- ther the barren formula of those poor, uneducated peasants Luther. To be sure, Zwingli's first man thinking which is primarily anese expansion in the Orient and . military "protection" and laid the foundation of a State thought had its roots in the writ- theoretical. The good relations be the European, war has two sides. based on a principle! An explana- ings of Luther, but he translated tween Switzerland and the Anglo-In Japan one was struck by the the concentration camp tion can be found in the situa- the German thought into Swiss Saxon world: can be explained in way in which Japan was inclined will ultimately be adetion of those valleys at the ex-thinking, which is not first of all part by the common spiritual in to exploit every European crisis tremity of German culture in the abstract, but practical, Zwingll clinations of the two people. It is for a new forward step. In Paris quate. There are avalan- direction of Italy, where the In- was not only a man of the church, therefore not surprising that Na and London one could see the re- ches of hatred, disgust fluence of Greek thought had been He was also a politician, He knew tional Social: concepts have not verse side of this process the ten- of French and British more or less preserved. This in- that a solid, new church must found forti Boil in Switzerland: dency and embittered rebellion|

have a backgrouxıd in a solid Class distinctions are not great in statesmen, their attention focus

Switzerland. There is neither greated on the struggle in Europe, to in the souls of men which oured cars to control as political State:

It is interestin to now that the poverty now, great wenith, among avoid complications. with: Japa are as hard for even arm- are the natural variety. leading thought of Calvin were "the people.

far as possible.

*

points.