STRUGGLE FOR SIBERIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 September 1918, Page 7

STRUGGLE FOR SIBERIA.

WHY JAPAN HESITATED. Mr Frederick Coleman is one of the i ablest and most sagacious of American correspondents, and in his book, "Japan Moves North: The Inßide Story of the Struggle for Siberia," he breaks comparatively new ground. He has paid two visits to Japan and Siberia during the later period of the war. His advice is "let Japan go to Siberia—and let something else go with her." By this "something else" he means:— "A group of educators—sympatheticunderstanding, earnest men with hearts in their breasts and hands of fellowship outstretched to the Russian in Siberia." As he 'sees the question of Japanese action in Siberia there are two great difficulties. The first is that the last Russian Governor-General in the Amur territory was a bitter hater of the Japanese and spread an anti-Japanese feeling which stiil persists and has been artfully fostered by thee Germans. The second is that the Japanese people generally feel that they might have to risk a great deal, possibly incurring the permanent enmity of the Russians in Siberia, and that they might gain very little. Japan, Mr. Coleman thinks, is "spurred by fear." She foresees a violent economic competition after the war, and thinks that if she weakens her position it may go hard with her. She does not feel that there is much sympathy in Australia, in Canada, or on the Pacific Slope. The need for action is great. Mr Coleman gives a pitiable account of the vast dumps of war material of all kind, supplied by the Allies, at Vladivostock and elsewhere on the Siberian railway—stacks of shells, metals, and rubber, and cars, and other perishable objects, for the most part standing out in'the open, with.no tarpaulins or covnving One explanation was the mdifjferent working of the railway before I the revolution, for which he thinks German agents and funds may have been in 7>art responsible. i' He gives a vivid account of the revolutionaries of the Far East and their ! credulous acceptance of catchwords manufactured in Germany, and also of the artful pro-German propaganda carried out by Swedes and some other neutrals in the Far East.