The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1916. JAPAN'S LOYALTY TO BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 April 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1916. JAPAN'S LOYALTY TO BRITAIN.

"Despite the enemy's efforts to sow discord, the war is going to bring the world closer together." These were the words of wisdom which emanated from the Japanese Foreign Minister in the course of a recent interview. They express the opinion not only of the highest authorities in Japan, but of all nations who are not blinded by hate or filled with the lust of destruction. German emissaries have been working hard, both in China, and Japan, to sow discord broadcast, with the object of undermining British influence and alienating pro-British sympathy, much in the same manner, but in a more subtle way, as the strenuous efforts made in Holland with the object of alarming the Dutch by proclaiming that the Allies had decided to over-run Holland. Fortune frowns rather than smiles upon these clumsy and antiquated methods of sowing discord seeds which motly wither instead of germinating. Baron Isliii has takon a fitting opportunity of presenting to the world the fact that Japan resents even the bare insinuation of disloyalty to a friend in trouble. In no country in the world is loyalty, in its true meaning, better understood and practiced than in Japan, and the Foreign Minister of that country has done splendid service to the Allies by his opportune and emphatic statement that Japan was bound to England by close bonds of mutual friendship and gratitude, while the leador of the Opposition was equally impressive in his statement that the loyalty of Japan to the Anglo-Japanese alliance was such a fixed and great national principle that a change of Cabinet would'not alter Japan's foreign policy by a hair's breadth. The civilised world is bound to accept these pronouncements as incontrovertible, but Germany will, no doubt, sneer at Japan as one of Britain's '"vassals," much in the same way as she referred to Portgual. In all-probability it will not be until after the war is ended that we shall learn the full value of Japan':' loyalty to the Alliance, and its recognition by the Dominions will have to take practical shape in regarding Japan ■with far more friendly feelings than those which have been evident in the past. Such loyalty must not be one sided, and it should certainly bring its reward. So far as the Dominions are concerned there should be no further suspicion of Japanese aims at territorial expansion, and our loyal ally should be treated generously and worthily.