DOMINATION OF PACIFIC

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22336, 25 February 1938, Page 18

DOMINATION OF PACIFIC

“Japan’s Grandiose Objective” MR F. G. MILNER TALKS TO, ROTARY CONFERENCE “The present war between China and Japan ;s not an isolated phenomenon: it is an instalment in a long programme of aggression, which Japan conceives to be necessary in the attainment of her grandiose objective—the domination of Asia and the hegemony of the Pacific,” said Mr F. G, Milner, of Oarr.aru. addressing the rational Rotary conference yesterday on the Far Eastern crisis. “Unless she can be checked in her progress towards realisation of that ambition she must be to us a terrific menace, and I am satisfied that for the peace of the Pacific there njust be co-operation between Britain and the United States," The world now bore witness to an outstanding renasence of the East, and especially the marvellous transformation of Japan. Mr Milner said. The static languor of the East had been for ever dispelled. Everywhere the East was restive under the impact of Western ideas. In the transfer from an agricultural status to capitalism and industrialism, the East had become conscious of subordination and restriction. and faced a revolution in psychology as well as in material conditions of life. Japan’s Destiny Against the huge background of sprawling impotence, which agricultural and static China presented, there

<tond out the compact organisation and definite purpose of Japan. Japan, in contrast, to China, was dynamic, assimilative. and progressive, and endowed with inordinate ambition. Always jealous of her figment of divine racial origin, which invested the Emperor with consecrated reverence, by her victories at Tsushima and> Mukden she was dazzled with the splendid vision of Imperial destiny. The 1931 break made by Japan in her sudden appropriation of Manchuria heralded the abandonment of her professed international obligations and the option of a new aggressive policy. She proclaimed a Japanese Monroe Doctrine for Asia. General Araki, at that time military dictator behind the scenes, emphasised the divine origin of the race as justification for supremacy. “We are the descendants of the gods and must reign over the world.” Japan was allowed to get away with the spoils and it was a pity that no collective international action was taken to impose sanctions or even combined moral disapproval. Britain had "backed the wrong horse” in seeing Japan as a protector of her interests in China.

Colonial Annexe Again now, Japan had made a break, and this time the five northern provinces were her objective. Japan hoped for the paralysis of China by a succession of defeats, and her exploitation as a huge colonial annexe. In the case of a stalemate Ja; t an would not hestitate to raise the 'cry of the Bolshevisation of China and summon the help of sister Fascist States. To-day Japan had unequivocally declared her sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order in the Far East, and especially for the guardianship of China. She was fully prepared to vindicate this regional ascendancy by force of arms. It was certainly not a heartening thought that whether Japan won out in China or not British interests were doomed to go. Japan herself would certainly not tolerate the open door except as a means of egress for her rivals. Moreover, anti-foreignism in China itself, if the Japanese yoke were lifted, would jettison extra-territoriality and eject foreign vested interests.

“League Hamstrung - " After speaking of the possible dangers to Australia and New Zealand contained in Japanese foreign policy, Mr Milner spoke of the international situation. "The Washington Treaties have faded out,” he said. "The League of Nations is both hamstrung and eviscerated. The world‘is anarchic and force is the only arbiter among the nations. Collective security has collapsed. The nations sign pacts—2oo of them in 15 post war years—and break them before the ink is dry. They mouth idealism, but rattle sabres. They talk peace, but practise war. The seven chief Powers spend £SOOO a minute on armaments—£2,soo,ooo,ooo a year. “We witness the regimentation and the callous victimisation of the idealism of youth. We witness the sublimation of the' State, the immolation of the individual to a mystic entity, the indoctrination of the young with strange cults and fetishes, the goose-stepping and the blinkering of their mentality. We see a hardening, a nationalism, and a conspiracy of arch-gangsters against democracy and freedom. “A repulsive feature in all this welter is the denial of freedom and the prostitution of education. We must hold last Jo the unity of our great Empire and to every chance of collaboration with America, for these English-speak-ing peoples have before the world a primary communal responsibility to safeguard freedom and free institutions, the demfccratic way of life, and with it the stabilisation of peace in the world. Under their guidance, supported by France and tne Scandinavian peoples, can come into this fevered world a stabilising influence that will be irresistible.”