A JAPANESE LOOK AT EUROPE.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 166, 31 July 1937, Page 4

A JAPANESE LOOK AT EUROPE.

While western nations are engaged in discussing Tar Eastern affairs and trying to draw conclusions as to the eventual outcome of Japanese activities in China, now apparently approaching something of a crisis, it is not without interest to note what a seemingly shrewd and competent Japanese observer thinks about the much more complex European inter'national tangle. This we may gather from the reprint in an Australian exchange of a communication sent to an Osaka newspaper by its special representative at the Coronation celebrations, written after a three months tour of the more important Continental capitals. Rossibly some sort of lmmediate reassurance is to be gained from the fact that this "onlooker seeing most of the game" opens up by saying, with apparent coniidence that "war is unlikely to occur for three or four years, but," he goes on, "what lies beyond God alone knows." # Having thus disclaimed any gift of long-range prophecy, he adds more hopefully that "if a war can be postponed for a few years, then a disarmament conference may be successtully held that may preserve peace much longer." All the smaller nations, he says, are looking to London and Washmgton for disarmament, but Germany and Italy interpret Great Britain's rearmament programme as a threat to impose disarmament on British terins. No doubt is expressed as to the great imminence of war tcwards the .end of last yedi , when ltaly's ambitions m Spain, with German assistance, seriously alarmed both Great Britain and Erance, who might well have risked a great deal to averl Kascist control m the peninsula. Ihe tension was, however, eased when Signor Mussolini realising that ftnal and decisive success for General Eranco's insurgents was by no means assured, signed with Great Britain a Mediterranean pact, which specifically disavowed territorial ambitions in Spain and the spirit of which, by the way, was reinvoked only the other day in a talk between the British Prime Minister and the Italiari Ambassador in London. As to JLtalo-German co-operation in the Spanish trouble it is said that Herr Hitler was actuated by the belief that ltalian success there would keep Britain and Erance busy in the west, thus giving Germany a chance to expand eastward. However, the conclusion reached by the correspondent, fairly well confirmed by subsequent events, was that, even with their surreptitious support, General Eranco's achievements in the field had badly disappointed both Germany and Italy, who would be glad to abandon the joint venture if only they could gracefully do so. In the Japanese writer's ppinion as in that of others, the two chief danger spots in Europe are Austria and Czechoslovakia. Despite Herr Hitler' s promises to abstain from political interference in Austria Germany will still persist in her movements towards the absorption of that country and will eventually succeed, but without necessarily occasionmg any outbreak oi" war. But, with Austria annexed by Germany, Czechoslovakia's existence will become precarious, for there can be no doubt as to Germany having an even more avid eye on that territory than on Austria. But any overt movement in that direction is not tosbe expected in anything like an early future. As to Anglo-Italian relations it is said that, despite occasional anti-British outbursts, "Signor Mussolini does not intend to fight." It is held that he is shrewdly calculatmg and knows that a war agamst Great Britain would ultimately be suicidal. He has gone some fair distance towards making the Mediterranean an ' ltalian lake, but Britain, by sealing the Mediterranean and taking the Cape route to India and the Ear East, could wage a war of attrition that would in the end completely exhaust ltalian resources. As to France it is believed that she will not fight unless in defence of her own territory, not even in pursuance of the Eranco-Russian pact unless in the very unlikely event of Great Britain being ready to back her. Of Germany it is said that she is extremely desirous to stand well with Great Britain, but is at the same time wishful to dissolv^ the unwritten Anglo-Franco-Russian combination which at present seems to stand against her, and which Great Britain is likely to maintain as the only way to preserve the balance of Power until some better and fuller understanding is reached amopg fhe nations. At the same time, too, notwithstanding ioud antiCommunist tajk, Herr Hitler recognises the need for cultivating trade relations with the Soviet which olfers her the most profitable outlet for her manufactures and can supply her with much of the raw material required for them. Although we are generally inclined to regard Herr Hitler as all-powerful in Ciermany, it is perhaps worth while noting tbat this Oriental observer says that Germany's wealcncss lies in the lack of unity among her leaders, representing von Neurath, von Ribbentrop, Goering, Goebbels and Schacht as working any.thing but harmoniously, and being somewhat out of eontrol even by the Fuhrer.