JAPAN AND SIBERIA.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1919, Page 4

JAPAN AND SIBERIA.

Prom the beginning of the war Germany hgs made subtle and persistent efforts to weaken the Allies by sowing among them the seeds of mutual distrust. Japan, too, has suffered from this policy, as Mr Frederic Coleman, shows in “ Japan Moves North,” which, besides discussing in particular the question of Japanese intervention in Siberia, gives also a general survej 7 of the position in the Far East. Mr Coleman does not deny that formerly there existed in Japan a certain section not wholly in sympathy with the Allies. These were some Imperialists, who saw in the Allies potential obstacles to their ambitions ; there were the Jingoes ; there were certain business interests whose sole preoccupation was to make money. But these elements were small and unimportant; similar malcontents are to be found everywhere. In Japan their in flu ence was never serious, and has already waned ; they were the last manifestation of a dying cause which at no time had many adherents. Symbolical of them was the Geuro, an order of elder statesmen, aged men, whose lives were drawing to a close. Japan knew that “when the Genro passed a system and a policy would pass with them.”

The ordinary Japanese has two deeply-rooted convictions, tbe first that the future security of his country depends on the alliance with the naval power o£ Britain ; the secoud, that her ultimate industrial and economic welfare depends on the maintenance of friendly relations with some of her most strenuous competitors. In the war she has fulfilled' every iota of her obligations ; she has helped to police the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and to clear the Germans out of her Pacific colonies. By sending warships to the Mediterranean she has done even more than her due. She is willing to contribute still further in men and material, but her position is one of some difficulty. When Mr Coleman was in Japan the burning question of the hour was whether a Japanese force should be sent to Siberia, which was then almost in a state of anarchy. The person and property of Allied subjects stood in need of protection, not only against the Bolsheviks, but against the bodies of German and Austrian ex-prisoners, who had organised themselves into armies ; there were great accumulations of stores, which had to be prevented from falling into hostile hands ; there was even the fear that the Germans might strike towards the Pacific coast. Intervention was indicated, but Tapan, though eager to do the right tiling, was on the horns of a dilemma. If she intervened there was a risk that her motives and intentions might be misconstrued ; certainly, she would antagonise Russia, her greatest customer, and an economic boycott might result. Yet it she did not intervene she might be accused of lukewarmness in the Allies’ cause. The difficulty was solved by making the intervention a joint matter with Britain and America. Mr Coleman’s title is a little misleading, for two-thirds of the book deal not with Japan, but with the Russian revolution in Siberia. The author was in Vladivostok when it happened, and is able to give a first hand account of its progress. The revolution was a much milder affair in Asiatic than in European Russia, partly because there had been no starvation and a higher level of prosperity before, partly because there was little opposition. But it passed through the same process of degeneration to virtual anarchy. The first Committee of Public Safety contained a majority of moderates, who did useful work ; the soldiers and workmen used their liberties temperately. Thus, although the army deposed all their officers, and elected new ones, they chose competent men, keen oil their profession, and alive to their responsibilities. The leaders and most of the rank and file seemed to be animated by a fire of real patriotism ; all wished to do some constructive service to the revolution. But the first fine enthusiasm faded. “A

wave of demoralisation passed over the army. Discipline went by the board. The men’s attitude was passive, rather than active: they had reached the stage of ‘ don’t care’; their disorganisation was marked.” The loosening of fibre | spread to the fleet. “Under no circumstances will the sailors obey orders to take the Government transports to sea except on the express condition that the)’ will be able to return for Sundays and holidays. Should an officer be housed in an apartment which the sailors consider too large and luxurious for him, they summarily evict him, and compel him to live elsewhere.” The extremists began to control the situation ; to the number of firebrands was added “ the political and criminal element,” which flowed freely home from America and Australasia. Many of these were good men, but among them was “a liberal smattering of the most [borough scoundrels that could be found. The general view was held, too, that among the returning immigrants was many a man in German pay. Certain it was that no one could better have served Germany’s cause, whether or no they were on the pay-roll of the German Secret Service. Many a young Russian enthusiast, who would not take a penny of German money, or willingly aid the Prussian regime in any way, has spread broadcast through Russia doctrines that might well have had their inception in the very headquarters of German propaganda.” Mr Coleman was able to see the working of the revolution from the inside, because he found an acquaintance in Vladivostock, aßussian whom he had met in Australia on the staff ofa Labour paper. This gentleman showed Mr Coleman round, as the saying is, and enabled him to give us this lively study of Eastern Siberia in its various phases of revolution, each of which made confusion worse confounded.