NO WAR SPIRIT in Congress Debate

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 70, 15 December 1937, Page 5

NO WAR SPIRIT in Congress Debate

—Press Assn.-

TOKIO ADMITS ERROR "Let's Keep Our Shirts On," Says New York Paper JAPAN'S IDLE TEARS

(By Telegraph

-Copyright.)

(Received lo, 8.4o a.m.) NEW YORK, Dec. 14. The Congress debate on the Japanese bombing and sinking of the '-American gunboat l'auay was heated, but war spirit was conspicuously absent. Senator Ashurst predicted that not a single Senator would vote for war in the Orient under any conditions. There is no indication in Administration circles that measures are being considered for sending naval reinforcements to China or declaring a state of war between China and Japan for the purpose of invoking the Neutrality Act. Senator Thomas said: "If Japan has accepted responsibility and apologised there is no more the IJnite'd States can do. You cannot go to war against a nation that admite it was wrong." The New York Times, in an editorial, States: "The Japanese Government has accepted full responsibility for the unwarranted attack on the United States gunboat Panay and the three Standard Oil tankers near Nanking. Under the cireumstances no other course was possible. The attacking aeroplanes clearly failed to establish accurately the identity of the four ships before loosing bonibs."The Japanese have apologised as the United States requested," the Times adds* "The United States also asked for compensation for the loss incurred, and doubtless this will be forthcoming. But what reply can be made to the other demand presented by the State Department in its Note to Tokio — namely, insistence on guarantees that there shall be no repetition of snch an incident? The plain fact of the matter is that while the Japanese army remains in China such guarantees are not worth the paper on which they are written. There are bound to be cases when the Japanese mistake the identity of their victims. The Japanese Government can no more give a convincing assurance that foreigners will ba safe from the eonsequences of its aggression than a burglar can that innocent bystanders will not be shot when he Sets out to Joot a housei "Only One Valid Guarantee." "The only really valid guarantee Japan could give would be the withdrawal of her invading army from the soil of China and the liquidation of this imperialist adventure," the Times states. "In the meantime, our Governqient is entitled to receive from citizens sympathetic understanding of the pioblems involved. It is easy for Congressmen to propose that American gunboats should be withdrawn entirely from Chinese waters, leaving merchant ships and nationals to their own devices. "The situation is rdminiscent of the sinking of the Maine at Havana in 1898. "But the important dillerence is that Japan has promptly accepted responsibility, which Spain refused to do, and, unlike the case in 1898, the American public is not inflamed. "Not even the cravenly Neutrality Act goes so far as to lay down the theory that American ships should be. forbidden to carry on wholly peaceful trade or that nationals going to the Orient as merc'hants, diplomats and missionaries thereby forfeit the protecting interest of their Government. "The Roosevelt Administration is attenipting three diflicult things simultaneously in China — namely, to protect legititaate interests and nations, to avoid being drawn into a war not of our making, and to exert its influence on behalf of an early and honourable Settlement. In pursuit of these objectives, the Administration deserves understanding support " Inspired by Propaganda. Under the heading "Idle Tears In Tokio," the New York Herald-Tribune says» "The bombings are a serious incident which the Japanese will have to take very seriously indeed in order to satisfy American public opinion tbat it was not an isolated affair. How&ver, the bombing of the Panay could not be regarded as a mistake in any ordinary sense of the word. "These assaults, culminating in deliberate attacks on neutral shipping, undoubtedly have been inspired by propaganda within Japan 's armed forces which has the tacit approval of their general officers. The Japanese military folk in the field have become contemptuous of the rights of occidentals in China, and there is among them a eraving to express that contempt with high explosives. "Tokio promises to discipline the responsible airmen. If it shot them all it would not deter others from emulating their example. They would be martyrs. "What this country has a right to demand is tliat the highest responsible officers should be recalled and disciplined with full and honest publicity throughout Japan. If it transpires that Tokio cannot or dare not trv to do this, then there is no further point in having formal diplomatic relations with such a Government," the HeraldTribune adds. "Hostile Act." "Let's Keep Our Shirts On" cautioned the New York Daily News in an editorial. "The Japanese navy has expressed the most profound regret at a terrible mistake, and it seems that the apology should be accepted. While we have vessels and marines in China we are risking these episodes. - The best thing to do in regard to the Panay incident is to keeo our shirts on." The Manila Daily Bulletin, which is I an American-owne.d journalfl in a lead,"

ing article, described the Panay bombing as a hostile act. "Diplomats can call it what they please, but the cold fact is that when armed forces under different flags fire at eaeh other that is war," it adds. It is understood that the United States navy's attitude will be that thu Japanese campaign of attacking foreign gunboats is mdefensible because the Japanese had been boasting that they had sunk every Chinese gunboat on the Yangtse,