Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1939. NEGOTIATING WITH JAPAN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1939. NEGOTIATING WITH JAPAN.

TT is not easy to base'any very confident hopes upon the 1 negotiations between Britain and Japan which are to open in Tokio next week, in spite of the fact that these negotiations follow upon an exchange of views between the British Ambassador (Sir Robert Craigie) and the Japanese Government. In his statement on the subject in the House of Commons, Mr Chamberlain is reported to have said.that: — These conversations ... will relate to local issues and will be designed to secure that, while the neutrality of the Concession shall be maintained, British authority in the Concession shall be preserved intact. It is precisely on these points that the very gravest doubts must be entertained. The matter appears, indeed, to have been carried well beyond the stage of doubt. Events of the last few weeks, and a number of statements made by Japanese Army and other spokesmen all support the view expressed by a British correspondent in Tokio some days ago that:— Japan has decided that what she wants is not a local but a fundamental solution. Tientsin 'is now viewed as a “showdown, not alone as a problem of concessions, but as a problem involving Britain’s whole Far Eastern policy ... Informed quarters in Tokio (the correspondent added) declare that a settlement is possible only if Britain discontinues her assistance to General Chiang Kai-shek and stops obstructing Japanese economic and political plans. A cablegram received yesterday set forth demands by representatives of the Japanese Army at Tientsin—demands ostensibly for British “co-operation,” against terrorists, in the control of anti-Japanese elements, in economic policy and so forth. It is sufficiently obvious that what is really sought from Britain in these demands is not co-operation, but submission. It is in keeping with the rest that Britain is asked to hand over 48 millions of Chinese dollars held by Chinese banks in the British Concession at Tientsin. That is to say, Britain is asked to facilitate the theft of assets of a friendly Government, with which she is linked in normal diplomatic relations. As they have been stated in unmistakable fashion, the demands Japan is seeking now to enforce by blockading British and other concessions in China are rather worse than the infamous Twenty-One Demands which Japan made on China in 1915, but which she was later constrained to withdraw. One of the chief points in the indictment of the Twenty-One Demands was that they were'intended to give Japan a controlling influence in China. . The demands Japan is now making are intended to give her, not a controlling influence, but complete possession of vital commercial areas in China. It is plain enough that if Britain and other Powers yielded to these demands, they would not only be conniving at a vile wrong to China, but would bo taking the, step best calculated to lead to the destruction of their own' interests in that country.

Justice and equity, and tile most elementary respect for neutral obligations demand that rights and privileges held and exercised by foreign Powers in China should be surrendered only to a duly constituted Chinese Government. Britain has already given'a lead in that policy by surrendering to China her concession in Hankow and her naval base at Wei hai-wei and with a Chinese Government in effective control of the country a further contraction of extra-territorial rights to an ultimate vanishing point would be just and natural. The surrender of rights in China to the Japanese, however, would be a policy at once fatally weak and dishonourable.

On the facts, it is hardly possible to believe that the Japanese will be willing to negotiate a settlement within the limits indicated by the British Prime Minister in his statement to Parliament. The intentions and desires of the Japanese militarists have been defined unmistakably. They are now emphasised in an announcement that the blockade of Tientsin is to be intensified on July 1. Unless Britain is prepared to resort, to strong measures, some sort of unsatisfactory compromise seems to be as much as can be hoped for in the way of an outcome from the negotiations about to open in Tokio. INDUSTRIAL FAIR PLAV. announcement by the Minister of Labour (Mr Webb) that the Government is going to introduce legislation to deal with unions which resort to strikes in contravention of the law will he welcomed very generally, and not least by enlightened wage-earners and their dependants. A system of compulsory industrial arbitration is vastly to be preferred to the strike and lock-out methods which had their more or less inevitable place in the life of darker and less fortunate days. Like any oilier system of law, however, industrial arbitration must be enforced without fear or favour if it is Io stand. A very large proportion of the trades unionists of the Dominion are loyal to the arbitration system, but from time to lime individual unions arrogate to themselves the right, to denounce and repudiate awards of the Arbitration Court. As the Minister of Labour has said, unions cannot have both the benefits of the arbitration system and the right to resort to direct action. There is no doubt that an overwhelming weight of trades union ami other opinion in this country favours the arbitration system as the only one that permits an adjustment of industrial issues on lair and equitable terms. Corresponding support, it may be hoped, will be given to whatever measures are found necessary to ensure the effective enforcement of awards ami their observance by workers and employers alike. It is evidently not consistent with elementary justice that employers should be compelled to observe awards, while workers in some instances, are allowed to treat them with contempt.

The action now promised has ils full justification, not only as a matter of equity as between workers and employers, but as a matter of fair play to the general community, consisting largely of wage-earners and their families, upon whom the cost of unwarranted and wasteful strikes largely falls. Probably many even of the members of unions which engage in strikes would be glad to see an eml made of the barbarous futilities of direct, action. That men allow themselves to be drawn into taking pari in strikes by no means of necessity implies that they really wish to do so. No rational citizen of a free democracy like New Zealand can doubt that a system of industrial arbitration is better than direct action, the more so since, in the extent to which the machinery or administration of the arbitration system can be shown to be defective, constitutional means are available of making them better. If the benefits of the system are desired its obligations must be accepted.