AMERICA AND JAPAN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 262, 15 March 1911, Page 8

AMERICA AND JAPAN

BELIEF IX A WAR WITH JAPAN. Mr. Maurice Low, in a recent despatch .Yum X''\v York. io'.i.-hi'S ofi the possibility of Japanese trade rivalry in South America leading to a war. He says: — While .Mr. iiarrett and other persons are trying to increase American commerce with Latin-Aim-i ic-ii certain other persons see in South America the scene of the coming strojr-.'ie between the United States and Japan, a struggle which the inan-in-thc-streeb believes to be inevitable. This belief in a war with Japan has become a fixed idea with Americans. They talk about it with almost fatalistic acceptance, as a thing ordained and not to be escaped from. Not long ago a person of prominence said to me that Japanese activity in South America could not be viewed with unconcern by the United States. "The Japanese," he said, "are swarming into South America. They are after trade, and are trying to oust the Germans, just as the Germans have ousted the British. They hope to control the trade that properly belongs |to us. They will establish a foothold in , South America and will say that they have as much right there as we have or anyone else except the South Americana themselves, and so long as they are there by permission of South America the United States has no right to interfere. We, of course, can say or do nothing so long as the conquest is purely commercial, but once the Japanese solidly entrench themselves commercially they will seek to secure their position by political privileges, as they have done wherever they have forced a lodgment. That will be in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine, and the United States will either have to resist that or abandon the Monroe Doctrine because it interferes with the policy and aims of Japan. We shall only abandon the Monroe Doctrine I after we have fought for it and have been defeated, but we will never give it |up until that has happened. I have never believed that Japan unduly coveted the Philippines or even the Hawaiian Islands, as they are not worth over much to her; but the trade of South America is different, and South America offers a field for Japanese colonisation and exploitation. It is there that danger threatens us from Japan." It is a new and brilliant idea. It will probably become an old story before the Monroe Doctrine is abrogated or the United States and Japan go to war over the trade of South America.