ACT OF FOLLY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1940, Page 5

ACT OF FOLLY

JAPAN AND THE AXIS PACT PLUNGE INTO RECKLESS POLICY. NEGLIGIBLE PROSPECTS OF ADVANTAGE. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, October 2. “The Times,” in a leading article, says: “As a result of signing the tripartite pact Japan has plunged on a course fraught with incalculable consequences for advantages which, even on the shortest view, appear to be negligible. “Japan is already drawing every possible advantage from the war in Europe, and Germany, who is already making a supreme effort to crush Britain and neutralise the United States, cannot do more, even to please Japan,” the newspaper adds. "The history of the last 20 years explains but does not condone Japan’s latest act of folly and miscalculation. Japan began to travel rapidly the road to disaster after her attack on China. There is a curious parallelism between the situations in Germany and Japan. “Both have occupied positions particularly qualifying them for economic leadership of neighbouring countries and Japan, like Germany, could have chosen a path of peaceful co-operation and played a dominant role in China’s economic development. Japan, like Germany, lacked the necessary selfconfidence and plunged recklessly on the path of ruthlessness and domination.

"Japan’s progress in the past three years has been accompanied by deliberate provocation of the Western Powers, and England has not forgotten the brutal behaviour in Tientsin last summer, the arrests of British subjects in Tokio, with the tragic and suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Reuter’s correspondent, and the further stage in the campaign of intimidation. These things did not happen

by chance, but were part of a calculated policy that is now extending to Americans.

“The tripartite pact marks a further and almost the last step on this path and seems deliberately to close the door. On looking back it must regretfully be admitted that the former cautious Japanese foreign policy has been abandoned.

“China has received the pact with unreserved satisfaction, wisely seeing that Japan, by deliberately courting the hostility of Britain, the Dominions and the United States, has fully mortgaged her future and involved herself in the consequences of Germany’s coming defeat.”