The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1920. JAPAN RUFFLED.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 December 1920, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1920. JAPAN RUFFLED.

There are indications that Japan is passing through a phase of national and international change that may have far-reaching effects. Her rise to the status of a Great Power was meteoric, and for a time threatened to unduly magnify her importance, but she was made to feel by the older Powers that she was still a small nation, and there have been administered to .her no lack of diplomatic and other snubs that must have been very galling to Japanese pride. During the recent great war, Japan was able to considerably expand her industrial activities and to grow rich thereby, so that her position to-day is vastly superior to what it was before the war, and it is this fact which is not sufficiently realised among the nations. Her claim to racial equality is not merely the outcome of pride or sentiment. It is based on her position as a Great Power, and backed up by a determination that will not stop short of accomplishment—whether by peaceful or other means time will show. Apparently the Japanese authorities are getting out of patience with those who are inclined to treat them contemptuously, and their great parade of diplomacy is but the display of the velvet glove to hide from view the mailed fist. Japan's great need is industrial expaasion, and some of the na-

tions are forcing Japan to realise that trade must follow the flag. At the present Japan's feathers are ruffled by irritation, and the letter presented by the Japanese military mission at Chientao to the chief of the Canadian Presbyterian mission at Mungclm leaves no room for doubt as to the present temper of the Japanese military party: "British missionaries must either cease political anti-Japanese activities, or get out." Though the warning is addressed to Canadian missionaries, it is obviously intended for the whole of the British Empire, hence the allusions to the Dominions being troubled by revolutionary plotters, the reference to the possibility of Japanese Buddhists going to India to assist the non-cooperators, or to Ireland to assist Sinn Feiners. The document exhibits considerable astuteness in leading up to the closing moral that the British and Japanese have mutual troubles, and must show mutual sympathies. It is America, however, that is providing the most rankling thorn , in Japan's side. Not only is it the anti-Japanese legislation, particularly in California, that is causing intense bitterness and resentment, but the concessions granted by the Soviet Government to an American syndicate in Siberia are regarded as a bar to Japanese fishing rights, and violate Japan's Far Eastern position outlined in agreements with the United States. The fact that Japan is said to be maintaining a large military camp on the lower end of Formosa indicates the possibility of trouble arising, and cannot fail to create a position of uneasiness. There is bound to come a time when Japan will no longer tolerate being treated as a small and impotent nation, and it would seem that the time has arrived for due recognition to lie made of her'claim that her case rests upon the principles of justice. It is one of those matters which, if pressed upon the attention of the League of Nations,' may cause considerable trouble, but it would be more politic to have the matter settled now than allow it to drift into a serious-com-plication that may place Britain in a very delicate position. That some effective means should be taken to solve the problem is beyond dispute, and the sooner the better.