JAPAN FROM WITHIN.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 13, 8 October 1937, Page 4

JAPAN FROM WITHIN.

Overnight messages regarding the Sino-Japanese situation do not make it very much clearer what form the suggested co-operation of the United States vvith the League of Nations in an endeavour to end the war is likely to take, Apparently the only proposal so far njooted - is for the holding of a conference pursuant to the Nine-Power Treaty of 1922, which provides : "Whenever a situation arises wbieh iu the opinion of any one of the contraeting parties (the United States, Belgium^ the Brjtisb Empire, China, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and Portage 1) involves the application of the stipulations of the present treaty and renders desirable discussion of such application, there shall be full and frank communication between tbe eontracting parties concerned." That is all there really is to it, and it will be seen that it Hoes not carry us very far towards any specific action for securing compliance with the terms of the treaty which Japan has so egregiously violated, while Japan herself is said to have so far declined to take part in the conference— almost a qase of "Hamlet" being played without the Prince. In the meantime, until the position is further clarified, it may not be without interest' to note what an American journalist, Mr Marc T. Greene, writing from lengthy personal observation in Japan, has to say about what he terms the "Japanese Bogey." He starts out by stating that "the American is all at sea in trying to size up the situation in Japan. and is equally off his soundings in his endeavour to under- . stand the Japanese people." As to the latter question he goes on to say that the first thing to be recognised is that in Japan we have well over sixty millions of highly industrious, ffugal and thrffty people trying to sustain little more than a bare existence Jn a country the size of the British Isles and of which only a sixth is arable. For them, the toiling mass of the Japanese population, the problem is as to whether this country will be allowed to find outside markets for the fruits of their industry and so build up an economic system that will affo'rd some relief from the arduous lives of virtual privation they at present have to live. In the direction of their destiny by the. militaristic cult which now holds domination and imposes upon them the burden of maintaining a vast military establishment, the Japanese masses «an see nothing but a frustration of the hopes that were beginning to take definite shape in foreign trade. For them, therefore, the first great thing to be achieved is to rid themsejves of such domination and to secure some form of really democratic government." "The, world," writes Mr Greene, "and especiaiiy America is apt to conclude that the whole Japanese attitude is definitely aggressive and that the whole country is in the grip of militaristic obsession. Nothing could be further from the facts. If it were a question of the will of the mass of the Japanese people there would be little for the world to apprehend." The source of all the trouble is that the people are so governed that the will of the great majority can find no practical expression. It is' not in consonance with the general outside impression to have this American writer tell us that, as a people, the Japanese are entirely averse to any war of aggression. At the same time, however, he has to confess that even at the time of his writing the internal campaign of systematic and entirely false propaganda sedulously co'nducted by the militarists was having its effect even upoh the naturally well , disposed masses. He notes, too, that, as in other , totalitarian States, the autocratic attitude of the dominating party is very largely due to the suppression of anything like freedom on tbe part of the Press, which is thoroughly well "controlled." From consideration of economic .and social aspects, Mr 1 Greene goes on to discuss Japan as a military Power. Here he contends that the conceptions of her strength are probably very much exaggerated. Though her militarists boast that she has never known defeat in war and make great use of this fact in their propaganda, he points out that she has never yet encountered anything like a first-class fighting Power. He dismisses Japan' s dramatic success against Russia early in the century as signifying really very little, and cannot understand from what else comes the notion that has ascendancy, especiaiiy in America, that Japan is a dangerous threat to a first-class military Power — which, of course, is as it may be.