OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 133, 29 February 1936, Page 17

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Japan, Britain and U.S.A. “Japan has no real wish ■to insist on parity with the British Navy; she understands and accepts the peculiar difficulties of our position. But she canriot say so officially—indeed, when it was stated that she had said so officially it was officially denied—because that would imply a discrimination between the British Navy arid that of the U.S.A. Yet I have excellent grounds for stating that that is the Japanese point of view. It is np use blinking facts. It is the U.S.A, which set the standard of the Japanese Navy, and since the U.S.A, has insisted on a navy equal to ours, Japan is compelled to demand equality with both. The offensive discrimination of the American immigration laws has much to do with this, .buf. not all. For the British Dominions have also closed their doors to Japanese emigrants, and the Japanese are almost as resentful of the British as of the American attitude in this matter of racial discrimination. Almost, but not quite, for there has never been such a serious incident on this issue with the British Dominions as that In 192-1, when Mr., Hauihara, the Japanese Ambassador to Washington, in protesting against the new federal immigration lan-, aroused a great storm by his reference to ‘grave consequences.’ The fact that the AngloSaxon peoples have been foremost in racial discrimination against the Japanese must always be borne , in mind when trying to appreciate Japan's attitude towards the West.”—Mr. Ernest H. Pickering, in his book “Japan’s Place in the Modern World.” Mussolini’s Busts.

“As au example to bis fellow-coun-trymen Signor Mussolini has given to the State a collection of bronze busts of himself which have been stored at his country home near Forli. The example, of course, Is .not artistic, and the Italian people are not expected to throw away the statues, pictures, and engravings of their leader; it is a moral example. Italy, treacherously hampered in making war by the League of Nations, must offer up every scrap of available metal to be turned into armaments. Yet bis fellow-country-men may think that Mussolini’s sacrifice cannot be over hard to bear. Even one bronze bust of himself is too much for the average man; a w-hole collection of bfonze busts should be too much even for a dictator. One of the many disadvantages of dictatorships is the convention by which every artist must frequently produce a representation of the leader, even if it is no more than a picture postcard. Hundreds and thousands of these things are duly presented to the Illustrious model, who must feel like a bride presented with innumerable sets of. fish-knives,” — “Manchester Guardian.”

Time and Christabel Pankhurst. “A little more than thirty years ago Miss Pankhurst was thrown into prison for interrupting a' speech by Sir Edward Grey. then Foreign Secretary, as part of the militant campaign on behalf of woman’s suffrage, which she and her mother and sister were inaugurating. Afterwards she and her followers spent many weeks in jail for breaking up political meetings and otherwise forcing their cause • upon public attention. They became the terror' of politicians. And Christabel her self was denounced from pulpits all ever England as a menace who ought to be put permanently behind bars Then the war came on, women’s services were desperately needed by the Government, and by their loyalty women earned the vole. A few weeks ago 12,000.000 women went to the polls in the United Kingdom and cast their ballots. And now Christabel Pankhurst is made a Dame of the British Empire for public aud social, services.. Thus docs time right the wrongs men do.”— ‘'Detroit Free Press 1 ' (U.S.A.)

For a Safe Home. “If Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh and his charming wife have been forced to fiee to England to keen their young son out of the clutches of brutal gangsters, it is a terrible indictment of our American institutions. When government is no longer able to insure the life and property of its citizens, it is time to stop and ponder whither we have drifted. Colonel Lindbergh Is said to feel that the criminal element is so powerful that no citizen is safe. He believes there is more reverence for law in the ‘tight little isle,’ which has neither bill of rights nor written constitution, or a supreme court to ‘interpret’ the law. One of the first things that the dashing colonel will discover when be reaches England is that wealthy and influential men do not join the gangster, racketeer and thug in heaping contempt upon the government, nor openly and flagrantly flout its laws.”—“Labor” (Washington, U.S.A.)

Bombing Ethiopians. “The more they bomb us the better we like it. We are not afraid of them; they do us no military damage and no property damage, and they are wasting money, of which we know Italy has little. Anybody should know, though the Italians apparently do not, that aeroplanes are effective against troops only where they are massed, as they often were in the World War. Our troops are not massed. Often a plane will throw a bomb at a single Ethiopian soldier on the road, and of course, not hit him. Even if every bomb thrown scored a hit, at that rate the Italians would have to drop 2,000,000 bombs to destroyjis. And I know of an actual instance where one plane dropped twenty-three bombs at one man in an unsuccessful effort to hit him.”— Dedjasmatch Naesibu, Commanding the Abyssinian Armies in the South, speaking at a War Council.

Collective Security. “From the outset of the Ethiopian affair Great Britain ‘lias consistently maintained that League action to coerce Italy must be truly collective and not tlic «sole responsibility of a single power, however strong. Now that collapse of peace negotiations conjures up the sudden peril of war as the consequence of other means that may bo necessary to curb the aggressor, Britain is on reasonable’ ground in demanding that she no longer carry alone the burden of vindicating League authority. John Bull wants something besides Up service from his partners .a the great adventure of collective action to enforce peace.’’—“Washington Star.” U.S.A.

Producers and Consumers. “When we speak of representing the consumers’ point of view, the consumers whom we have in mind are those who ultimately use and enjoy the products of industry; and it is on their behalf that vigorous protest ought to be entered against the policy which is being at present pursued. Doubltless the majority of farmers would have been far more reluctant to enter into schemes based on representing the consumers’ as well as the producers’ point of view. The farmers, mostly convinced individualists, were bribed into the marketing schemes by the offer of monopoly and it is possible to argue that, if the schemes had been started on a more equitable basis, many of the farmers would’ have stood out against coming into them at all. There was a case for meeting the farmers when it was only a question of organising tiie marketing of the *llOOlO product without imposing any control on imports. For a producers’ organisation was not inimical to the consumers’ interests as long as the market remained free. But as .soon as restrictions were imposed, either by tariffs or by other means, on the importation of foodstuffs from abroad, it became manifestly unreasonable to exclude the consumers from a voice in control.”—G. D. 11. Cole, in “The People’s Year Book.”

This Queer Civilisation. “Abyssinia is far away, and the number of paper-slain Ethiopians not in itself important. Nevertheless this cynicism is the kind of insult to the human intelligence which makes enemies for the nrofit-making system among honest folks who feel that capitalism is still the best bet in economics. For this is a minor instance of the complacence with which the debauching of the minds of the public is condoned if only it pays. No other argument until recently has been intelligible to the proprietors of the movies. No other argument is taken seriously by the owners of more great newspaper properties than defenders of our present order will care to admit. It is a curious civilization we live in. Millions spent on the non-prolit-maklng business of educating children to use their minds like rational beings. Millions made by exploiting the instinctive tendencies of adults to revert to the category of credulous children who can be stuffed with vulgarity or with lies.” —“Saturday Review of Literature” (New York). Prospects of 1936.

“What conclusions can we draw about our economic prospects in 1930? We may predict with reasonable confidence that, while ’recovery’, will spread over a wider and wider range of consumers’ trades and industries, the pace of recovery in the ‘capital goods’ industries will slow down. After all. one cannot expect this/Country to pile up capital equipment ad infinitum at the 1933-35 rate. There may still be some leeway to make up, but there are limits to capital extension inside the country, as long as world trade remains at a low ebb. All the indications at present are that ‘recovery’ in this country is likely to become wider in extent but slower in momentum during 1936. But this conclusion is only possible on certain Important assumptions, and it must be qualified by reference to certain dangers. .These dangers arise in the foreign as well as in the domestic field.—“ The Economist” (London).

Public Opinion. “Public opinion, a general sense of right, lias revealed itself as a power to which at times the most solidly entrenched governments have to bend, even iu cases where there is no constitutional means by which observance of it can’be compelled. The British Government having just acquired what would ordinarily be considered an overwhelming majority, sufficient, one would have supposed, to steam-roller any criticism, any murmurs, has been compelled, most humiliatingly, to eat humble pie. to confess itself at fault, to abandon a definitely adopted policy. (It has been wise to do those things). If the Hoare-Laval plan was dictated, as commonly asserted on the Left, by powerful ‘imperialist interests,’ then those interests have been compelled, by the mere pressure of public opinion, to abandon their designs."—Sir Norman Angell.

Would’st Keep a Book? Buy It! “The other day a man put an advertisement asking borrowers of Lis books please to return them. It appears that he had loaned them to friends, and they in turn had loaned them to their friends and so on. Now no one seemed to know who had the books. Chain lending is not a new tiling. But that does not make it any more palatable to the owner of the book. Men and women who really love books are eager to lend them to friends. They want their friends to meet their books and enjoy them. But they want those books home again soon so they may turn to. them when the mood seizes them. Booklovers everywhere will feel a surge of sympathy for the advertiser of his 'lost’ books, for they know just how he feels. When one reads a book and wants it, the thing to do is to go to a book store and buy a copy. Authors, publishers and booksellers exist for the purpose of filling just such wants.”—“Edmonton Journal.” Canada. Roosevelt and the Presidency.

“If conditions remain as they are al present, it is generally conceded that President Roosevelt will be re-elected, though, of course, with a much reduced majority,” writes Mr. Francis W. Hirst, the economist, in the “Contemporary Review,’ on his return from a visit to America. He still commands a great popular following. His skill in political tactics extends to the larger strategy. Sometimes he guides, sometimes he follows, pubic opinion. He is accessible to new ideas and likes experiments; but he can also listen to criticism. Ills enemies denounce him as au artful deniagQgue, His friends would represent him as a Liberal democrat of unquestioned courage, with fine qualities of leadership, and a sympathy as sincere as that of his wife with the hard lot of the poor and the unemployed. A doubting Democrat remarked the other day to a friend in New York : ‘I recognise the President’s faults, but I shall go on .supporting him because I know he has sympathy with the downtrodden and is trying to help them.’ He will prove a very difficult man to beat.”-