Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1937. "PREPARATION FOR PEACE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 90, 13 October 1937, Page 10

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1937. "PREPARATION FOR PEACE"

Pressed by President Roosevelt to peaceful courses, and urged Vin the opposite direction by promises of Italian support, Japan seems to be inclined to disten more to Washington and to London than to Rome. The correspondent of "The Times" at Tokio observes there "the beginning of Japanese preparation for peace"; and, if he observes correctly, this is the most important piece of news cabled for some days. Besides being a matter for some rejoicing by peace-lovers, "The Times" message opens up constitutional questions of special importance. The new States/Advisory Council is an experiment that could not be attempted except through the peculiar powers of the Emperor of Japan. Under the authority of the Emperor, a minority Cabinet, under the dominance of the Army, was allowed to commit Japan to war; equally under the authority of the Emperor, reverse gear can be manufactured, at a moment's notice, by creating out of nothing a State Council, and by calling it an Advisory Council, so that Cabinet and Diet may not altogether lose face. The reverse gear to take Japan Out of the war is quite equal to the task to the correspondent's conception of the new situation—if a badly assaulted China will now grant peace terms satisfactory to a somewhat disillusioned Japan.

Although the Japanese attack on China may be politically profitable to Italy, it has not been economically profitable to Japan, and it promises to confer on .the Japanese an enduring legacy of Chinese hatred unless the mistake of invading China is corrected. The substantial elements in both the Minseito and the Seiyukai parties never wanted the war, and there is every indication that now, under the surface, they want peace. What created the war was the ArrayV despair' of ever securing a Diet to its liking. -Under Army influence the former Diet was dissolved long before its time, ; but the dissolution resulted in another Diet with the two great parties, Minseito and Seiyukai, fairly in balance, and with the Cabinet as rquch as ever in a minority position. The Army's repeated attempts to secure a Cabinet satisfactory to the Army, and at the same time commanding a majority in the Diet, altogether failed. It is true that the majority parties were unable to prevent the Army from rushing to war, and that they formally stood "behind the Government" once war (undeclared) began. But the march of events, the bombings, the attitude of London and Washington, and the preparations for the Nine Powers Conference have morally weakened the headlong war party and have justified the passive Parliamentarians. If the Army still triumphs in influence and continues its wrecking course in China, commercial and industrial Japan will know that it is no longer the triumph of reason. A great deal depends, of course, oh what the Army means when it speaks of "a lenient peace." And much'will depend on the new tenmen State Advisory Council. The Army and the Navy will have four representatives on the Council—one more than the representatives appointed by the politicians. But finance and business also will have two representatives, and the diplomatists will have one, so that the fighting forces will appoint four m ten. No such expedient as the State Advisory Council will be found in Britain's handling of the conduct of the war of 1914-18, but Japanese democracy is peculiar to itself, and has drifted into a position where something must be done to co-ord-inate the military totalitarians and the Parliamentary parties—and the Emperor's is the hand to do it. The Parliamentary factor alone cannot, as in Britain, restrain the Army; but a State Advisory Council, appointed by the Emperor, can and perhaps will.

Although this Council of Ten, whose "nationalism" is to be "unimpeachable" is put forward in the light of an emergency advisory body, its effect on the Constitution of Japan may be more lasting than appears. Long before the present .war the Army was'demanding a special authority with powers challenging to the Diet. Such a demand was, indeed, a corollary of the Army's inability to swing the electorate— a natural result of the Army's failure to secure a puppet Diet by the process of voting. Totalitarian tendencies in Japan are natural to militarists whom the voting system has! thwarted, and it is easy to see on which side Signor Mussolini's favours, would fall. If the State, Advisory Council should prove, -in the unpredictable future, to be a totalitarian wedge operating against Parliamentary control, democracy will not be benefited. But the cause of peace will profit if the Emperor of Japan has found an expedient for reversing the wheels of the warchariot and terminating a war which, while nominally waged against the Government of China alone, is in reality a direct attack on the people of China and particularly on those who have least share in the quarrel and least means of self-defence.