The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1931. THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 275, 20 November 1931, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1931. THE FAR EASTERN CRISIS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, Foj- thM pj.uj.rf »•* the distance, And the good that we fin do.

The inevitable clash between the large bodies of Chinese and Japanese troops facing each other in Manchuria has at last eventuated, and the Chinese have had the worst of the conflict. The Japanese have occupied Tsitsihar, which marks the point at which the South Manchurian railway meets the Chinese Eastern line, which is Eussia's high road to Vladivostok, her naval base on the Pacific. In the pursuit the Japanese have crossed the Chinese Eastern line, and have thus entered the Russian sphere of influence, so that the League of Nations, which has been endeavouring to settle amicably the dispute between China and Japan, now finds a third factor intruding into the problem, and may experience even greater difficulty in dealing with the claims and protests of the Soviet Republic.

In view of the disastrous complications that may easily develop out of this controversy, the situation in Manchuria needs to be clearly understood, and. it is not difficult to explain. The Japanese admittedly have certain treaty rights in Manchuria, which is still recognised as a province of China. They maintain that the Chinese have interfered with Japan's interests, and that as the Chinese authorities cannot repress brigandage or afford adequate protection to Japanese colonists and their trade, the Japanese troops have been compelled to take action. The Chinese retort that Japan is seizing territory outside the sphere defined for her by the treaty, and is simply trying to find pretexts to strengthen her hold upon the province, and they demand that the Japanese forces shall be withdrawn. Japan refuses to admit that China either can or will ensure the safety of Japanese property and life in Manchuria, and therefore declines to recall her troops or submit the dispute to outside arbitration; and so the appeal to force has come.

So far as the facts are concerned, the situation is thus simple enough. But when we come to consider what right the Japanese h&ve in Manchuria, or what just claim they can put forward to the interests and the material assets to which they attach so much value, the position is very different. None of the treaties to which Japan appeals give her the right to treat Manchuria as her own property or to assert predominance over China in that province. The best that can be said for Japan in this respect is that, having expelled the Russians from Southern Manchuria, she simply took their place. But as Russia had no moral or legal claim on Manchuria as against China, the Japanese there are merely foreign invaders who have gained a foothold by aggression and hold it by force. It has been argued that Japan needs Manchuria for emigrants and colonists, to relieve the pressure of population on her own limited area. The answer is that in Japan itself and in Formosa there are large regions fit for occupation that Japan has not yet utilised. Japan's attitude toward China in general, and Manchuria in particular, is based on political • ambition, and the conflict in the Far East has arisen out of militarism and Imperialism as clearly as any modern war.