1941-02-04 — Page 3

JAPANESE POLICY ALL ADRIFT

Masterly Review Of Long Road With

No Right

Right Turning

A SPECIAL ARTICLE IN THE LONDON “‘TIMES” YESTERDAY, ENTITLED "JAPANESE POLICY ADRIFT,” SUMS UP THE TREND OF JAPANESE FOREIGN POLICY IN RECENT YEARS.

The article says that when, on the night of September 18, 1931, Japan in Manchuria set out on the long road which so far has shown no turning, her leaders acquired a certain dexterity in persuading the Japanese public, and to a lesser extent the world, that effect usually precedes cause.

First they shaped the shadows which events cast before them and then created the events themselves, and by that process ulti- mately proved, at any rate to their own satis- faction, the justice of the action which they thereupon felt inevitably called to take.

Japan what she sought nor alter- ed the will of the Chinese people

be masters

their destiny.

tu

DOWNL

Seeking A Scapegoat

The Japanese publie did not #uppose for a tenetl

that t campaign aging China would be anything but a short and glow.. ..far

war' as the service thereby ren- dered Germany

vlous.

would be ab.

But, if in the event Japan should not win, that does not mat- ter for Germany; for at worst all three Powers would have been weakened and it is no part of the Hitlerian plan that Japán occupy" an equal place with Germany In the new world order. It is as a pawn not as a partner that she is destined to play her new role.

From Mr. Matsuoka's speech Germany may well judge' that her blandishments have not been in vain. At first sight'the' speech would appear to contålm threats against the security not] only of Indo-China, Thailand- and the Netherlands East Indies but also Britain and the U.S.A.

A Tall Order

I

It is a tall order and if Japan elerts to attack there is such thing as a vigorous and resolute defence with all those weapons of modern war to which Mr. Mat- suoka referred and with which Japan is yet unfamiliar,

The real threats of Mr. Matsuo- ka were not against the security 1 the countries mentioned but against the pence, prosperity, hap-

IDLE DANISH SHIPS

MAY BE RELEASED

Thirty-eight Danish ships, totalling: overn 250,000 tons; now idle in American portš, · may, if the United States Government approves, carry car- goes to Britain, says the New York "World Telegram" yesterday.

Twenty other ships in South American ports may be released, the

paper adds: Reuter.

To explain the prolongation piness and welfare of the Japanese

people.

After ten

years of conquest which brought them neither spiri- to conjure tual nor material well-being, after a struggle in which lives were lost and deprivations suffered to no purpose they are being ex- horted to bebeve that aggression is a good investment and although it has not paid thvidends hither' elimination. La further effort, more capital out- dal state Her

lay and sacrifice will bring them

of the conflict it became nece :ary to Jay the blame 0'1 somebody and while many were blamed the fashion grew for portraying Great Britain as the chiet villain of the piece. This was more natural because Britain has wider interests. and associations in China than

any other power

At the time of the Manchurian the first paragraph of this art-therefore, was the primary ob- incident the world was napping, not yet alive to the new tecnique which has since become

right ele, yet it seems hardly credible jective in the eventual elimination not only dividends but a substan-

a communplace,

Even Hitler dia not disdain 1c borrow fron the Japanese when he began to be threaten ed by small nations and cver ran them in self-defence. The Manchuran mcident wi, also responsible for the formalin of the habit of inventing militant slogan:

course.

China

that Japan would resort to so dis-, of all Western influence from astrous and suicidal a

The war of 1914-18 offered un paralleled opportunities for ex- pansion of trade, As a signatory of the Treaty of Versailles ta fart conveniently overlooked by bola Germany and Japan to-day) Japan benentted from the fruits of victory and secured

among other things a mandate over the German Marshall and Caroline such limited assistance would it- responsible JO1 In 1931 much was heard at p Islands, details of whose admini- self have been

trations anch developments she, the vigour of Chinese resistance. has been curiously reluctant lo! divulge to the world at large for some time past.

4430,000,000

Manchuu."

OPPERS Ki peondol

Ready Tongues

As il

tial bonus.

Hypnotised

Such men may have had dreams of empire but they did not suffer the folly of grandeur for nor did they seek blindly imperfect friends. Though in the course of half a century they transformed a feu- into a modern nation into a reckless adventure nor cry they did not plunge their country

| "encirclement.” They spoke the voice of Japan. That is why Jn- pan rested on a solid foundation.

Impenetrable Barrier

Vigour of Resistance

Such cynical disregard of hu- While the sympathy of the British people has in the

man values might come from Hil- main ler himself.

But it comes from been with the Chinese, and whole, those leaders in

Japan who be- But slumbering volcanoes have like other countries, Britain has | lieve in Germany's star and are always been there and have been rendered certain material ashypnotised by it.

in eruption ten years. The forces sistance, neither sympathy

That their frenzied Finance of restraint have been weakened and bad politics may now push and the molten tide flows

des- the people to irretrievable distructively onwards. asters means nothing.

Will it not, sooner or later, Germany has spoken and what reach an impenetrable barrier a German says must be true.

against which it will pile itself In valn?

It is a solen thought that not many decades age, great men led Japan to greatness,

Ito, never

Spienii

For this Japan can claim the credit. By her action in at- tempting to dominate China she aroused in the Chinese nation a unity, will to resist and com bative power which had previously been seen In a nor. mally peaceloving people. What Japan aroused she now

perity. peace and ordered goveks to quell and it is perhaps. crnment. And growing wor:d

trade.

result of the enormious] Bound figur

sacrifice of blood full readily off

and treas?) the tongues in daj: lese orator...

by the Allies. compared withi But in due course the feeling

which the drain on Japan's D'An 01 oppression was alleged to rernuices was infinitesimal, she have removed from: 30,000,000

crjoyed years o' great pros Manchurians and one began to hear a good deal about the op pressed millions of China, who ran much larger but neverthe less the figures were round.

it entirely without signi- ficance that we are now beginning The speculative tendenev to hear of the oppressed peoples Japanese finance meant that the of Indo-China, Malaya, Burma, great slump of 1929 struck Japan etc., (in round figures), groaning i even more severely than most under the yoke of the white man?

Gratuitous Aspersion

The recent speech of the Ja- panese Foreign Minister before the

The Great Slump

of

to

not surprising that she seeks lay the blame elsewhere.

With an apparent inpasse in Ching, the war in Europe ip- peared to present possibilities to Japan. During the preliminary inactivity she was content to re. main passive but when, at the end of June, 1940, Germany could other nations but the fashion was claim to have overrun and con- no: then so prevalent of blaming quered Poland, Denmark, Holland, ethers for one's own ills and Norway,

Belgium, Luxembourg until the entumn of 1931 Japan and France, there was surely proof, pursued a sane if arduous policy if ever proof was needed, that of trying to restere er trade anl

aggression does pay.

Diet was full 01 slogans. Mr. financial position DJ norm.d

Matsuoka had not gone very far before he quite gratuitously al- 'leged that accounts of Italian re- verses (which the Italians them- selves admitted) were malicious propaganda.

He was cordial to the Axis, placatory to the Soviet Union, formally friendly to the South American States and vaguely menacing to Indo-China, Thai. land and the Netherlands East Indies.

But the real significance of the speech was that there emerged the unmistakeable shadow of "en-

means.

Japan changed her government and the new government, of which She did more: she pursued Mr. Matsuoka has been the spokes- an Inevitably right policy of

man, after a little preliminary trying to cultivate Chineas

hesitation, signed a friendship.

pact with This was the only Germany and Italy openly rang- way the could hope to secure ing Japan with Britain's enemies that large share of the Chincue and threatening the U.S.A. if she market to which close proxi- mity to

war

dared to intervene,

Japan Shocked

pity a

become

that

unlikely.

cheap manufactures would entitle ner But the

long ⚫ record - of Sino-Japanese animosity, dating particularly from the

It was perhaps of 1894-5 and from the Twenty-One already by the time the pact was Demands in 1915, was not easily signed it had

apparent cradicated.

that the immediate overthrow of ance, which won Japan the resto the world at large and to Ja- The virtues of patient persever-Great Britain promised by Hitler pect of other countries in bygone pan in particular was days, tended to be obscured dur- This fact became patent and at ambitious materialism: ing the rapid rise of a nation of the same time the U.S.A. display. led most lively and apparently un-

expected reactions to the pact.

There was indeed a degree of hesitation in Japan and the world was puzzled to learn one moment that the pact did not mean what it said, and the next that it meant precisely that.

“Short Cuts"

circlement by the British Empire and the U¡S.A.” One can almost hem the voice of Germany,

Will Believe. Anything, The British. Empire, engaged in the greatest struggle of all time with a powerful and tenacious This gave certain elements of foe, and the U.S.A., whose main the publicly declared endeavour is to assist the Empire in the struggle, can nevertheless, spare the time and trouble to encircle Japan.

army an opportunity September, 1931,

iu short cut to prosperity, and Japan to attempt a was launched upon the path of aggression, as opposed to that of

But Germany, at hand, whis

"It is hardly credible but.say conciliation and settlement of! one who believes Germany, and disputes by force instead of nego-pered in Japan's ear that all was there is some reason to suppose | tisilon,

well, that the U.S.A. was.. not that: the leaders of Japan to-day When Manchuria had fallen ready for war and could be do; will ballava - anything. and a puppet regime.catablished, frightened with a 'few study it became clear as early as 13 threats and that Britain's destruc-

•

Is the shadow of encirclement that. China propor, or at any rate tion was deferred only to make the shadow which precedes.avents North China, formed the next it more effective. and is the event in its turn the shape which will call action just and inevitable?

Suicidal Course”

It would all be in accordance with the technique described in

stepping stone to expansion

What Germany Wants The hostilities - begun in 1937 |* - have continued nearly four years; What Germany said and is.say- have caused countless suffering ing to Japan is that if she will take to millions of people and have her courage in both hands all she led to the occupation of all covets lies in her graspi China's ports and many great What Germany, wante -lə»Jasi cities, but have not yet brought pan to become embroiled in the

Yamatata. Okuna and

The eruption will then cease and the surface cool, but under- neath will lie the ruins of a thou- sand years,--Renter.

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