Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1933. JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 267, 9 October 1933, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1933. JAPAN AND THE PACIFIC.

Japan’s aggressiveness in Manchuria, its strong militaristic aims which are reflected in its land war machine and ever growing- navy, and its industrialisation on a scale which is causing grave concern particularly in British countries, which are the ones chiefly affected by cheaply produced Japanese goods, are developments of policy which are of paramount importance. Mr F. Milner, one of the keenest students in this country of international affairs, has returned from the Pan-Pacific Conference with a grave warning of what this portends in the Pacific. Japan, he says, is conscious of its strength; the policy of idealism and internationalism (according- to General Araki) has led nowhere, and the people now are turning their backs upon an unfruitful and barren period and are embarking on forceful realism. Therein is implied a menace to the countries of the Pacific, and from it emerges a lively fear that the future will see a great war in that region. More and more are thoughts being concentrated on Japan with its trend in policy now so well-known, the achievement of one man, General Araki, the inaster mind behind the Manchurian operations and the head of the military dictatorship under which Japan, it is believed, may at any time pass. This military leadership, it was recently said, is pledged to a policy of big armaments and aggression abroad. General Araki himself is. known as the Japanese Mussolini; his plan envisages a Council of State controlled by army generals and the abolition of Parliament. He has “dreams of the Japanese ‘liberation’ of India and the vision of a great Empire by which Japan would exercise a hegemony over Asia.” This is one side of the picture that is most disturbing. At the Banff Conference Mr Downie Stewart frankly surveyed the risks to peace that are now visible. Now at the British Com-mon-wealth of Nations Conference in Canada he mentions that the isolation of some members of the Empire cannot but engender in them the desire for a more certain protection than the League of Nations. New. Zealand and Australia come within this category. His words give force to Mr Milner’s plea that the United States and Britain should meet Japan in conference to avert the possibility of evil and give a benefit to the whole world. As Mr Milner sees it, this is the only policy in substitution of one leading- to an “internecine struggle that threatens to encrimson the Pacific.” Mr Stewart also believes that if the forces now operating- in the Pacific—forces biological, social, economic and political proceed unchecked along present lines, the outcome must be an internatioanl catastrophe. But he affirms that they need not so proceed and a calamity can be “avoided by the application of courageous remedies.” Britain, the United States and Japan are the leading nations in the Pacific. Upon their good will and international friendship rests the greatest of responsibilities—:peace in the Pacific. The two great English speaking- nations have shown a sincerity that cannot ever be questioned ; Japan must give proof that the disturbing events since 1931 are not aimed at an upheaval. “Anglo-Japanese friendship is stronger than ever to-day, although the Alliance has been abrogated and trade disputes exist,” Viscount Ishii, chief of the Japanese delegation to the World Conference, said recently. Further, he declared it to be incomprehensible that there should be any fears of Japanese expansion in the Pacific, or that Japan should contemplate aggression thousands of miles from her own country. Such remarks are timely. But the fears that Mr Milner and other prominent people have spoken of do exist, and it is to the point that, as an Ajnencan commentator has said, if we are

to keep the Pacific worthy of its name the world must try to understand the Japanese underneath. A proper understanding of the related problems would do much to clear the atmosphere which to so many students appears to be growing more clouded.