LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 127, 21 January 1932, Page 2

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

SYMBOL OF MYSTERIOUS POWER TO MANY CHINESE. HALTED WAR WITH JAPAN. PEIPING, Friday. The Chinese name for the League of Nations has beeome a symbol of mys--uapun o^ ^ou op Maqq. suop -sunj 9SoqA\ 'anSnaq; poouiA "U03 9.TB 9S0UU{Q ipnS ppio.vs. jo pun^snapun pun '9^io;m ,XO pU9A q.0UUU9 Ol[/A 9S9UtqQ JO spuus -noq^ .toj .T9A\.od ^U9pA9U9q snoiagq staild, has saved China from war with Japan. When the Japanese Government sent a warning to China concerning the anti- J apanese boycott a f ew weeks after the oecupation of Mulcden, a nation-wide panic started in China. Wild rumours penetrated to the most remote provinces that Japanese intended to invade China. This apprehension was not limited to the illiterate. Officials at Nanking made elaborate preparations to remove the ^apital to Loyang, in Honan, if the Japanese occupied Nanking. Then another report spread throughout China. A great power i:a the Y/est, known as the League of Nations, ahd told Japan it must not invade China, and Japan had obeyed. The danger was past. The fact that neither of these reports was based on facts has made little differenee to the uneducated masses of China. Thousands still believe that Japan had actually begun to invade China, and that the League of

Nations stopped the Japanese. Many educated Chinese, familiar with world affairs, are also convinced that th'e League curbed thq ambitions of Japanese military leaders. They believe that the military party, " after pccupying Manchuria, had decided to extend their operations to the principal ports of China, which they intended to hold until they had obtained a settlement from China of outstanding disputes. , These Chinese believe that the League jus.tified its' existence by focusing world attention on events in the Far E'ast. Individual countries, they believe, would have hesitated to protest. The League, by publishing official impartial reports, compelled Japanese militarists to limit their activities to Manchufia. Regardless of the outcom'e in Manchuria, the League has therefore immeasurably increased its prestige in China, among dhe illiterate as well as the educated classes.