Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JULY 21, 1941. ADJUSTMENT IN JAPAN.
ASSERTIONS by more or less representative and autliorita- . tive persons and agencies in Japan that the late Cabinet crisis and its settlement imply no change in foreign policy are on the face of it unconvincing. Had no change of this kind been implied or intended there would have been no need to drop the forceful and outspoken Mr Matsuoka and to appoint Admiral Toyoda in his place as Foreign Minister. As to the grounds on which Mr Matsuoka has been dropped, however, a measure at least of obscurity remains.
The principal features of Mr Matsuoka’s policy which may be supposed to have a bearing on the matter were his persistent attempts to identify his country as closely as possible with the European Axis Powers and his recent conclusion of a pact of neutrality with Soviet Russia. The result of these developments of policy was, as has been pointed out, that Mr Matsuoka committed Japan to mutually exclusive treaty relations with both parties in the Russo-German war. The immediate question to be determined.is. whether Mr Matsuoka has been dropped in order that Japan may be free to side with the Axis against Russia, or because she wishes to attain a greater measure of independence in her relations with the Axis.
Probabilities seem to incline to the second of these alternatives. As a London newspaper has suggested, the explanation of what has occurred may be, not that a breach with Russia is coming, but that there is a desire in Japan to loosen the ties with the Axis which the recent Foreign Minister had taken so prominent a part in strengthening.
Whether this supposition is justified or not, the” reconstruction of the Japanese Cabinet plainly is an event of limited significance . There is aipl has been no question of conflict between a party of aggression and another desirous of turning to a policy of peaceful adjustment and reconstruction. The ruling elements in Japan are all. of them committed to predatory and aggressive aims—there has been no suggestion from any quarter, for example, that the invasion of China should be terminated—and the disputes which gave rise to the late crisis evidently related only to the methods by which these aims might be pursued most hopefully and advantageously.
While he represents to a considerable extent the most intensely militaristic elements in Japan, Prince Konoye has held power thus far to no small extent on account of the address with which he has brought about co-operation between the militarists of the Array and Navy and the powerful and influential group composed of the great industrialists and other representatives of big business in Japan—a group represented in the new Cabinet by Mr Ogura, the new Minister of Finance. The general attitude of this group towards a. policy of predatory military adventure has been one of approval, so long as they are able to regard that policy as reasonably safe.
Whatever its detail developments may have amounted to, it is tolerably certain that, broadly speaking, the recent crisis arose in Japan because of a perception by the representatives of big business, and probably by somq of the Army and Navy militarists as well, that Japan was following a course much more likely to plunge her into danger or disaster than to offer her hopes of profit and advantage.
With Mr Matsuoka in charge of her foreign policy, Japan has been committed to an all-out and reckless gamble on an Axis victory. The great question now to be determined is whether, under her reconstructed Cabinet, she will observe the measure of restraint which evidently is needed if an extension of the war to the Pacific is to be averted. In a statement made in Washington, Lord Halifax has reiterated that Britain and the United States are of one mind in desiring Io preserve peace in the Pacific, but in saying that he has at the same time indicated in uncompromising terms that there are limits which Japan iuust not pass.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 July 1941, Page 4
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671Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JULY 21, 1941. ADJUSTMENT IN JAPAN. Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 July 1941, Page 4
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