POLITICS IN THE FAR EAST.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9086, 11 May 1908, Page 4

POLITICS IN THE FAR EAST.

The psychology of politics in the Par East, remarks the. London Daily Telegraph, is at the; present moment worth watching. We have never taken the foolish course of defending our allies through thick alid fhin, without regard to the evidence, and we have never fought to conceal any matter ol fact that seemed fairly to teli against them. An allianc3 between two people will not make either jf thorn perfect. Faults and other characteristics on both sides will remain what they were fore. Our allies, we think, have not the slightest desire to be treated like spoiled children, or to exempt from the criticism to which all Western nations subject each other.more or less. Cut, while we are ready to ake a balanced view, we are bound to say that the Mikado's subjects are no longer receiving full fair play. There is a process going on in many parts of the woilo, but especially among the English-speaking peoples, which can only be described as crabbing Japan. Our allies are, apparently, expected to show a super-human absence of egoism. They are asked, in effect, to adopt an attitude of passive resistance with respect to all Western interests immediately concerning the Far East. If the Japanese take any active steps to assure themselves an advantage in trade we are told that they are a greedy nation. If they seek to increase in relative strength, they are described as an aggressive nation. They have been practically excluded from the American Continent; yet they are expected to remain the disinterested apostles of the Far East, and to refrain from securing any special advantages as a result of the colossal sacrifices they have made. Again and again, during the Kusso-Japan-ese war, we pointed out that these were naive expectations, that they were bound to be futile, and that if Japan won she would seek, by hook or crook, to make her own profits bear some proportion to the tremendous risks she ftad separately undertaken. This is what every conquering nation has done throughout the history of the world. This is what we did in the 18th century. This is what modern Germany did after Sedan; and it would be abject ipharisaism not to recognise that Japan in her present policy of selfassertion, is framing herself upon the best Western models. We, at least, ought to remember what was meant by the cry of perfidious Albion. Anglophobia was in the main nothing more or less than the penalty of our success; and Japan is condemned and misrepresented exactly as we and the Germans have been, and for the same reasons and with as much or as little justice.