JUST DEMANDS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 193, 1 September 1937, Page 5

JUST DEMANDS

(British Officiai Wireless.)

British Note to Japan Approved ENGLISH PRESS VIEWS

RUGBY, Aug. 30. The terms of tho British Note to Japan received warin approval in the Press. The Times describes them as just. No British Government, it says, could havo asked for less in satisfaction for tho shockiug outrage by which the Ambassador nearly iost liis life. To havo prcsentcd stiffcr demands would have been to allow Avell-jastilied resentiuen t to outrun reason. "There is, of course, no nuggestion that the attack on tke Ambassador was even indircctly instigated by the Japanese authorities," the paper adds, "but the macliine-gunning of his car by Japanese airmen was a consequence of a course of conduct that was in itself entirely contrary to all accepted international usage. "Japan is not formally at war with China, and the order to spray noncombatants with machine-gun bullets from the air in an area remote from the scene of fighting goes beyond even the lawdess standaras which Japan has permitted herself. Even though the wounding of the Ambassador was of course, not deliberate, the Japanese Government cannot disclaim responsi,bility for the consequence of this illegal action. "The inexcusaBle part of last week's reprohcnsible affair is that the attack whick was made by the Japanese military force was an attack delivered upon a civilian life. This is the real issue. The Note stands on no petty point of honour but for a fundamental principlo which cannot be allowed, in the immense range of.modera armaments, to lapse into desuetude." The Daily Telegraph observes that the Note, though firm, .is marked by re'Scraint uncommon enough in the days oi dictatorial diplomacy. The natural anticipation, it says, is that the Japanese Government will offer the sacisf action asked for. "The shooting of the British Ambassador was an putstanding example of what oceurs when indiscriminate attacks from the air draw no distinction between combatants and non-combatanta, but seek to involve both in the same Aolocauist," comments the Daily Telegrapli. "Unless the doctrine generally accepted for warfare on land and at sea can be extended to operations from the air, future confliets between great nations must see the collapse of civilisation. The protest now made is a warning to the whole world of the daugors of the theory of totalitarian war." The News-Chronicle, after commending the resti'aint of the Note, says; "It makes demands which any responsible Government careful of its honour would have granted already. " The Morning Post endorses the view that this was no accident resulting from any normal hostile operation. It adds: "It was a deliberate and deadly attacK on those who were obviousiy noncombatants. The Japanese are too sensitive where honour is at stake not to realise that no self-respecting nation could have done less than ask for satisfaction of an unwitting but indefensible injury against wkich the British Government has been «o strongly moved to protest."