SINGAPORE BASE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 145, 16 December 1927, Page 8

SINGAPORE BASE

JAPAN'S ATTITUDE

EXPLAINED BY CONSUL

.. in his lecture lastiniglit 4Kb Imperial Japanese Consul-General,' I& iyemasa! Tokugawa, referred :to the '- Singapore Base ana Japan's attitude towards it. Well-informed Japanese, ha said, saw that the base was a necessary link in the connections of the British Empire. No one entertained any doubts as to the motive; it was not regarded as an aggressive step on the part of Britain. The question might be asked," It is a means of defence against whom?" But that was not a fair question. Japan herself had a navy-of-fair-size, fofti-' fications, and an army, but it was not right to ask 'against whom they were to bo used. A man in a house in a lonely village might lock his. door when he went out: again it was not fair to ask against whom was h« taking this precaution. Means of defence were not directed against any particular country, and Japan had no real opposition to the Singapore base itself. "If the base was against Japan, we would not worry, because we entertain no aggressive policy." ' It was not the scheme itself that Japan minded, continued Mr. Tokugawa, but the loose utterances, made in discussing the subject, and the misunderstanding in other parts of the world as to the mind of the Japanese.