Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1938. UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 37, 14 February 1938, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1938. UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Japan's defensive position, from the naval point of view, is so strong that experts long ago came to the opinion that she' would be defensively secure with a much smaller navy" than Powers with scattered or world-wide territories would ; be. Experts held that with the 5-5-3 ratio (giving Britain and the United States naval parity, and Japan 3 as to 5), the United States '(with Hawaii) would not be in a strong position to attack Japan; nor would Britain (with Singapore); nor would Japan be in a strong position to attack either of them. Into this calculation of defensiveness,1 as apart from offensiveness, entered not only the 5-5-3 ratio but also non-fortification of Pacific possessions or mandated territories other than existing fortifications. As the years went on Japan challenged the whole basis of the calculation, both material and moral. If Herr Hitler had ruled Japan, he would have made the world ring with his protests against the thrusting of such inequality upon a Power entitled, among all others, to be an equal. The Japanese did not Hitlerise the situation in any resonant manner, but refused to renew the Washington Treaty or to perpetuate its restrictions. ' Japan's right to do • this isx undoubted. Japan also has a right to her own opinion as to what constitutes a 'defensive navy. But Japan must not be surprised if other Governments also have their own opinions as to whether the Japanese navy is being advanced from a defensive to an offensive position, having regard to possible Pacific bases or fortified positions. Britain, with a world-wide Empire, and flic United States, with the Philippines and other outlying possessions or dependencies, look at the question —what is a defensive navy?—not necessarily with Japanese eyes. And when they, come closer, and ask—in conjunction with France—whether Japan is prepared to exchange plans and details of naval construction present and proposed, Japan's refusal to exchange at once strengthens the presumption that the other Governments, if they are not to be caught napping, must build. In refusing to exchange information, as in refusing to continue the Washington Treaty, Japan is within 'her rights; but must recognise that she is refusing an assurance-^r-■probably the only assurance—that could stop competitive naval preparation in Britain'and America. There-is no competition keener than that which is concerned with an unknown factor. .

That part of Japan's policy which is within her rights must also be considered in connection with that part of her policy which is not within her rights—such as the rape of Manchukuo, the invasion of China I (with prospects of permanent occuV ipation),and the attacks on the warships Panay and Ladybird.- From the legalistic point of view, Japan's relation to purely naval treaties may be in order; yet the world cannot forget that .this Government which refuses to exchange information stands condemned as a treaty-breaker in respect of China. The question addressed by the three Powers to Japan does not, therefore, stand alone in" world opinion; it stands against the Chinese background. That being so, it is natural that the questioning Powers should give Japan an opportunity to show what her naval plans are, so that they may be considered from the standpoint of a navy capable of defending the concentrated position of Japan herself, strategically strong; or of defending a position on the Chinese mainland, in terms of a new Monroeism; or of an offensive into the Pacific, Ocean. People in Australia and New Zealand must not forget that ,the Washington Treaty, which aimed, by its restrictions on navies and fortifications, to keep a big gap of no-man's ocean between Japan and the Anglo-Saxon Powers, was a safeguard to these Dominions. No part of the world is more interested than, is ours in the question addressed by the three Governments to Tokio.

.. But the mystery in which the Japanese Government chooses to cloak its naval plans is nothing to the. mystery with which Herr Hitler's Government is, at the moment, surrounding itself. There is one unanswered question in Tokio. In Berlin, there are many. Is it true that, behind the veil of censorship, "a I purge of discontented elements in the Army is relentlessly proceeding"? Particularly, is it true that "the Army is not in a position to resist forcefully" and "the power of the higher officer class does not exist today"? Some of the current rumours represent the Army power as >passkig in a night. Others siege;

that generals as well as heads of business and industry are being arrested in a widespread combing-out recalling that of 1934 in ils thoroughness if not in its ferocity. To all of which the censorship replies with denial or contempt.

"Foreigners," according to one story, "are unable to realise the enormous powers of the Gestapo," or secret police. The Gestapo's enormous powers of arrest, which include the killing of people adjudged to be resisting arrest, enable a purge to go oh concerning which the authorities ■themselves wish to remain in convenient ignorance. The practice of ! official disclaimer of what the Gestapo does is alleged, on good authority, to be standard.' That' being so, an official denial by the'top men ,of what their under-agents are doing is considered as normal in a time of crisis. Is it surprising, therefore, that the denials of the German authorities fail to reassure anybody, and fail to kill rumour? What is happening to the Germans under their own dictation, and what is happening to the Chinese under Japanese dictation, should be a warning to all freedom-loving peoples to keep a distance between dictatorship and themselves, and above all to keep out of. their own domestic politics anything that resembles dictatorship of Right or Left. If they have driven that lesson home, the Japanese bombers in China and Herr Himmler's Gestapo and S.S. gunmen have not laboured in vain.