THE REAL PERIL

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28, 28 July 1919, Page 7

THE REAL PERIL

JAPAN MISTRESS OF THE

PACIFIC

HER HOLD ON CHINA'S MILLIONS

AND RESOURCES.

In the sacred name of peace, the- Big Four at Paris have been guilty of one of the greatest errors in history. They have (writes John Peel in London Sunday Chronicle of Ist June) handed over the uncounted myriads of China to the domination of their hereditary foes, the Japanese. ... We thought to bring peace to Europe. We may have done so, tut we have brought Asia a flaming sword.

We meant —we, the humble unknown common people—to unite the nations of the earth in bonds of amity. What has been done is to dig and deepen such a ga\i between East and .West as was never known .in all history. What ha* been done is to strew gunpowder all over Asia and to lay the train of innumerable wars.

Germany, you may or may not remember, was firmly seated before tho war at Kiaochau, in the Shantung Peninsula, in Northern China, amid forts and harbours on which she had spent twelve million pounds. She had_ seized this place, and great regions behind, because some German missionary bishop had been murdered. I saw her advent. I was there. In those days it was my habit to turn up in these curious places, not when things happened, but just when they were going to happen. WAR OFFER REBUFFED. The moment the Allies went to war in 1914, China wanted to come in, too. She p&rceive'd that Kiaochau was bound to fall,'and wished to take a hand. Someone objected. That someone was Japan. The Allies were eager for Japan to join thorn, find cared nothing about China, so they actually forced China to remain neutral. Great Britain sent to Kiuochau a tiny military force consisting of a battalion of the South Wales Borderers and a handful of Sikhs. Barnardiston, their commander, landed at Laoshan flay, not far from the huge fortified camp of Tsingtao."\

Not so the Japaneso Army, which disembarked at Lungkow, in the Yellow Sea, and marched 150 miles across the Shantung Peninsula to join in the fight. The Japanese commander thus created ?. big military zone. He .ivas pegging out claims. The fortress soon fell, the Japanese having admittedly and necessarily done all the work. China again asked in November to be allowed to enter the war, and at the instance of Japan was once more compelled to abstain. Why? Because even in the East you cannot decently present ultimatums to an Ally. THE TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS. For that was what, followed. After Tsingtau was captured, and the Germans were expelled, China politely suggested that the big military zone in the Shan tung Peninsula was no longer necessary. Japan responded by presenting to China her famous twenty-one demands. I need not specify these demands. Suffice it to say that they gave Japan almost unlimited cont-ol in China. Japan even demanded the right to "police" important places. I well recall the consternation with-which the news of Japan's actionwas received in London in January, 1915. The big newspapers were hurriedly asked to say as little as possible. The Allies were being badly knocked about by the Germans, and, whatever her faults, Jtpan was behaving like a loyal and active Ally, as indeed she did throughout. The United States sat on the fenca, a little fearful of butting in. China, awed by a fresh displaj' of military force, had to sign a Treaty embodying most of the Japanese' demands, though it is due to the Allies to say that the worst clauses were struck out on their representation. Here let me add that in one sense it was China's own fault. She had wasted years in internal strife. She is still doing so, and the civil war between her northern and southern provinces continues. If her leading men will not agree, no one can help them much. For the next two yeai'6 of tho war China remained an enforced neutral, and gradually one Ally after another reluctantly_ recognised the Treaty which Japan had dragged from her by force of arms. When all had endorsed the Treaty, when Japan's foot was firmly planted on China's neck, when Shantung was swarming with Japanese, China was solemnly permitted ■to enter the war in March, 1917. Is not that a pretty story ? Let me pass to the Peace Conference. The Chinese delegation went to Paris, as I happen to know, full of the highest hopes. In spite of their tragic political history, they honestly thought they would get their own territory back. Not a bit. Tho effect of tho Peace Treaty is that Germany's "rights" in Kiaochau and tho Shantung Peninsula are transferred to Japan. It is true that Japan undertakes to restore tho empty shadow of Chinese " sovereignty " to Kiaochau. I know what that sort of " sovereignty " means. I have seen it before. Japan will, dominate Shantung, and as she already holds Manchuria, China and tho Chinese lie in tho hollow of her hand. It means that henceforth Japan will control China. It means that Japan will be tha mistress of the Pacific, and the Chinese her bondsmen. WRATH IN CHINA. "Mind, in spite of all I have said, it is very difficult to answer Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson, and the rest of them, when they aay : " What else could we have done? We had induced Japan

to enter the war by secretly promising her the reversion of Germany's, stake in Shantung. The Allies were desperate in 1914, and would have promised anything. Japan was our close Ally, and has been a good and helpful Ally. If the Paris Conference had "turned her down," there would have been a revolution in Tokio when the Japanese delegates returned home empty-handed. . . . All China is ablaze with wrath. The delegation in Paris rowed it would never sign the Treaty, but it will sign all the same. Unless China signs she cannot enter the League of Nations, now her only hope. What will happen in the near future? My opinion is that Japan will relentlessly pursue her undoubted intention of exploiting China to the uttermost. None1 can stop her. The Western nations are too exhausted to interfere. China has huge stores of iron and coal, wonderful waterways, inexhaustible suplies of the cheapest and most industrious labour in the world. Japan's object is to weaken China, and to rule her. To this end, she is to-day suplying funds to-the armies on both sides engaged in the civil quarrels. She will organise millions of Chinese for industrial purposes or for war. She will get steel for her warships and coal and cotton for her mills. THE AWAKENING- EAST. China, is awakening fast. She may yet turn and rend Japan, or, with hatred1 of the West which betrayed her tearing at her heartstrings, she may eventually join willingly on nominally equal terms with the Japanese. Should that day dawn, you people who think these countries remote may awake to discover the existence of a very real Yellow Peril indeed. For the time is coming, yes, coming within ten years, when no spot on the habitable globe will'be called remote. "The League of Nations," I hear you say. What do the furious and disinherited Turks, the wild Tartars of the central steppes, the savage Afglians now arming against us, the secret rebels of India, the angry Chinese, the Japanese vainly claiming colour equality, the proud Arabs restive under strange "mandates," reck of the League of Nations? I believe in the Erinciple of the League, but not too opefully, and for Asia not at all. We are lighting fires in Asia which will be burning when this century dies, and even now none can see far through the clouds of smoke and flame". [Our contributor's article (says the Chronicle) was written before the remarkable speech of Sir Douglas Haig in Edinburgh gave his warning a very authoritative endorsement. "The magnitude of the next war, if no means are found to prevent it, will be far greater than we have yet experienced or imagined," said Sir Douglas. "It will be a war of continents—of Asia against Europe, _if the relations between States or combinations of States are to be car? ried forward on lines similar to those which have prevailed in the past. Every human device has been tried to stave off war in the past. Treaties, alliances, "balance of power, diplomacy, have all failed. It is not to be expected that the nations of Europe or of the world will attain within measurable time the degree of political identity which unites the races of Great Britain ; yet it is not fantastic to believe that along that road is the world pearce—perennial peace—for the world can only be won by the levelling up of nations."]