JAPAN'S AID.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 January 1918, Page 3

JAPAN'S AID.

WHAT THE JAPS MIGHT HAVE DONE.

"What are the Japs doing?" i s a question frequently asked by the man in the sti'eet. Since the Germans were blown out of China by Japanese and British guns, it is true that Japanese troops have participated n 0 further in hostlities with the enemy. The probability is that there has been n« request from the Allies for Japanese troops to fight in Europe, until quite recently, for Japan is bound to intervene against Germanism in Manchuria, The Japanese navy, however, has rendered great aid to the Allies in convoying troops across the Pacific. And it would seem that the question, "What are the Japs doing?" is the acme of absurdity when it is considered what might have happened had Japan been on the German side. "Some critics profess to believe," says the Japan "Advertiser" "that Japan has not done her part by the Entente Allies. Those familiar with the facts take a radically different view and marvel that Japan has done so much, so little, to further the aim of the anti-German coalition.

"Imagine Japan on the side of Germany in this quarrel. What woulc that have meant? Easily the loss of India, Hong Kong, 'Australia, and NewZealand to Great Britain, the effective strangling of Russia through the blockade of Vladivostock, the determination of the United States to refrain from active participation in the war through fear of Japan in the Pacific, since an American declaration of war on Germany might have synchronised with the capture of the Philippines and Hawaii. Russian apprehension of a Japanese seizure of Vladivostock and even of the Amur province as a whole would then have been very far from chimerical. The Japanese fleet could have swept Entente shipping from Far Eastern waters and demolished Entente trade in Far Eastern markets.

"If Japan is to be commended- for •her far-sighted statesmanship which counselled her present policy, she is equally to be lauded for the sagacity if not magnanimity, which has induced her to refrain from embarrassing Great Britain at such a time with insistent demands for repeal of the anti-Japanse legislation that disfigures the Australian statute book and generally for evidence of a determination to do everything she can reasonably be expected to do to promote the Entente cause."