The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1918. JAPANESE INTERVENTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 March 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1918. JAPANESE INTERVENTION.

The complications which have ensued in Russia consequent on the chaotic state of affairs due to Bolshevik incompetence to unify the revolutionary movement have been productive of certain new de velopnients which are being watched with soii'.j concern. It is evidently Germany's intention not only to strangle the revolution, but, if possible, to control the country so as to serve her own ambitious designs. Japan is naturally desirous of preventing any developments that will affect her security, and she is also anxious to safeguard the large store of munitions at Vladivostock and along the Siberian railway. Japan's position is perfectly clear. Slip has all through given such help with her fleet as was advisable, but has consistently refrained from military operations. Even now, with a possible menace drawing near, Japan lias placed her action in the Allies' hands, though it is stated she will take drastic measures to cope with any detrimental results from the ®usso-German peace. Tt would seem that Japan is extremely anxioup to avoid causing any interference witli the poliey of the Entente Powers, but at the same time is bent on safeguarding her own interests. This may mean that she considers it necessary, in view of the trend of events, to obtain at least a portion of Siberia, and it is equally clear that her active intervention in that region should entitle her to receive a due reward foi her services, and if we regard the potentialities of Siberia under Japanese development there can be no question that the cession would 'be advantageous from an economical point of view, and would allow for that expansion which Japan needs. In return for Japanese help, Russia should be only too willing to fall in with an arrangement whereby she would greatly benefit not only in the time of her present need, but for all time. We have to bear in mind that German aggression is limitless and that to allow the Germans to control Russia would be an unpardonable crime, whereas by the acceptance of Japan's aid at the present crisis, Germany would be checkmated in tlie perpetration of her present sclieme. Even China is alive to this aspect of the question and is bent on joining Japan with the sole object of thwarting German* ambition, if only as a revenge for the massacres and outrages carried out by the Germans in connection with the Boxer outbreak. There is an inherent reluctance, amounting to dislike, on the part of the British authorities to utilise Asiatic troops, but the present is no tbne for such a prejudice to be considered. The one great need is to win the war, and if Japanese and Chinese aid enables this to b« efl'ect-

oil, as well as gTeatly assisting to restore Prussia to iavv and order, then it would seem suicidal policy to refuse that help. The Entente should no longer vacilate, i>ut should rather welcome the aid t'iiat is now at their service A writer in the New York Tribune thus summarises the position:^

"The disappearance of Russia has placed Germany in a more dangerous position, so far as the safety of the world is concerned, than Napoleon ever occupied. If she is permitted to consolidate hei position she will h:tve won the war and have gained new momentum on the road to world supremacy. Beyond all o' ,e, Germany is now seeking an early peace which shall leave her still sufficiently strong to organise Eastern Europe and to control her millions of concf»iered Slavs. This is her goal, and wfc may in the next few weeks see that she is willing to pay for it in western concessions of unexpected magnitude. But, if, as a reward foi these concessions in the west, the Allies permit Germany to dominate the east, we shall end the war saddled with a new Eastern question far more threatening than the old, and a new German peril a thousandfold greater than that which troubled Europe for the last, quarter of a, century before the storm broke."