JAPAN & AMERICA

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 164, 7 April 1921, Page 6

JAPAN & AMERICA

THE THREAT OF WAR

AN AMERICAN VISITOR’S

VIEWS

ANGLO-AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP SHOULD

BE PROMOTED

That the Japanese are preparing actively for war with tho United States is the opinion of Mr. Marcus S. Hill, an American business man- who is in Wellington at the present time. Mr. Hill has spent over six ycofs in Japan and China and four years in Northern Russia. He is now making his twentieth trip across the Pacific, and he is more than ever convinced, after his latest visit to Japan, that the men who rule that country are pursuing a. policy that will bring them into conflict with the United States. "Their naval and military officers openly boast in newspaper articles that they are preparing to tight America,” said Mr. Hill to a reporter. "Diplomats and officials may deny that, but the army and the navy are getting ready. I speak Japanese, and I have been able to make my own observations. All the white people in the Far East know what is going on. The Japanese are not friendly to New Zealand and Australia; they have their knife out for the -United States. They believe, rightly or wrongly, that America is standing in the way of their ambitions. It is true that if they fight they are going to get a tremendous thrashing, but they do not believe that yet.*' Mr. Hill proceeded to speak of the anti-Japanese agitation in California. There was no justification at all, he said, for any suggestion that the people of the State of California wera acting in this matter without the support of the American nation. California had been draw, ing population from the other States, and its people were simply a representative group of America!*:. They had the support of the United States in their refusal to allow their territory to be over-run by Japanese. New Zealanders and Australians, who had insisted on their own right to exclude Asiatics, certainly ought not to have any difficulty in understanding the American attitude. "1 learned a good deal about the Japanese while I was living in their country with my family,” said Mr. Hill, ". . . . They know nothing about life from our viewpoint. • . - The Japanese carry their own notions of moral standards with them when they go into another country, and obviously their presence in large numbers 8n an English-speaking community is intolerable. "You people in New Zealand and Australia have prohibited the Japanese from entering your countries, and the Japanese have not protested seriously because Great Britain is their ally. Americano are using the same right that you are using—the right to say who shall enter their country. But in our case tho Japanese make a great show of offended dignity, simply because the attitude .suits their policy. They won’t admit Chinese coolies to Japan, because the Chinese labourer can live on a smaller wage and less food than the Japanese labourer. They have control of Korea, which would hold another 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 people, but they cannot com pete with' the Koreans any more than with the Chinese, So they want to settle in California, where they would enjoy the economic advantage that the Chinese coolie would enjoy in Japan. We are not going to have them in our country. The Gall'fornian people are enforcing their anti-Japanese laws, and nothing that the diplomatists and the lawyers can say will make any difference.” This led Mr. Hill to another point. He urged warmly that the American people and the British people ought to bo glutting closer together. They need not make any sacrifice of national independence or identity. But they ought to know one another better, and get rid of misunderstandings and prejudices. He always advised any traveller CrossingNorth America to select a route that would involve several crossings of the border between the United States and Canada. It was true that the German and Irish elements were strong in tho United States, and that anti-British feeling was cleverly stimulated 1 by certain newspapers, but the large majority of the American ■ people were friendly in their attitude towards the British Eui pire. He hail found in his travels, on the other hand, that very many British ers had a prejudice against the United States. It ought to be the business of responsible people in both countries to get rid of ill-feeling and to develop tho good-will that was l>ound to be born of clear understanding. ,“I pray from the bottom of my heart that Great Britain will not renew tho Anglo-Japanese Treaty,” added Mr. Hill. “I say that in all seriousness, because the treaty is a threat to the friendship between Britain and the United States. The Japanese are boasting openly that in their coming war with the, United States they are going to have the support, or at least the ‘benevolent neutrality, - of Great Britain. I have told Japanese that they are wrong, that they have made themselves the Prussia of the Bast, and that they have not a friend in the world. I hope sincerely that the statesmen of the British Empire are going to see tho wisdom of letting that treaty lapse. The salvation of the world depends upon Great Britain, and the Unite 4 Slates standing together.” In the course of some further conversation Mr. Hill invited the people ot the British Empire to look for the American point of view when they were discussing, and perhaps condemning, the attitude o! the United States towards the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations. A very large majority of the American people believed honestly that ex-Presi-dent Woodrow Wilson had violated the American Constitution and abused his powers when he attempted to commit the United States to a curtailment ot its sovereignty and to a policy of continued in terference in European affairs. imj felt that he had attacked the Monroe doctrine, which to them was a cardinal article of national faith. Mr. M Is had possessed no authority io do aliat he did nt Versailles. American, public men had warned him and the Allies in the most explicit way during the hegot’ations that the Senate would not latilj his proiwsals, ami the majority of the Senators, backed by ‘j l V\ merl ? aa ” d t.ioil, bad done later what they behey 1 tho interests of their country demanded.