CLAY COLOSSUS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 110, 12 May 1938, Page 24

CLAY COLOSSUS

f"' JAPAN OVER-RATED? }'■ ' ARMY EQUIPMENT ANCIENT UNTESTED PEOPLE

Hundreds of books have been written about Japan, and the output of the printing press has'increased during the past few months, because Japan's attack oh China has focused the attention of the 'civilised world on her ambitions in the says a writer . -in the Melbourne "Age." Judging by the numbeiv of books that have been written about Japan, it might be thought that few countries are so well known to the outside world. But that' is not the opinion of the authors of two new books about Japan. Mr. William Henry Chamberlain, an American newspaper correspondent, who has been stationed at Tokio for the past two years, writes. ■ as follows in his book, "Japan Oyer /Asia":—"How strong is Japan? On the answer to

this question depends the destiny of , Asia. The most varied guesses have been ventured. Japan is interpreted now as a nation of military and industrial supermen, now as a bluffer, a giant with clay feet ready to crumble at the first serious pressure. Between Japan and the foreign observer are several walls to be surmounted. First there interposes the jealous secrecy over all information having even a remote bearing on military and naval matters. A second wall , opposes in the personality of the average Japanese, which is apt to be reserved and repressed. And a third and most effective rampart is the Japanese written language, knowledge of which is restricted to an extremely small class of, specialists. These infinitely complicated hieroglyphs shut off the majority of even serious foreign students of Japan from direct contact with its books and publications. INTANGIBLE FACTORS.

r' "Finally even when physical Japan has been reckoned up, with all her fighting stength, her power in actual apd potential % her weight in finance; and' her weakness in msr materials, there jtill remain the intangible factors which almost defy Resolution. How 4 solid are the tradi* i tlonal foundations of Japanese society, with its reverence for the patriarchal Emperor and the family system? How much of the Japanese, way of life isingrained and deep-rooted, how much merely the result of tradition and police regimentation, and - likely to crack under the shock of a major •crisis?" ' " J Miss .Freda Utley, in her book, "Japan's Feet of Clay," writes: "Whereas most of the bboks written Japan by those'who pay a short visit to the'country are full of admiration and sympathy for the Japanese, : and accept all'the well-known myths of the happy workers devoted to their employers, the textile factories resembling high schools lor" girls, the success of Japan on the .world market being due to superior efficiency rather than ti

qheap labour; the strength of pacifist / and democratic sentiment,' the people imbued with loyalty and reverence for the Mikado,- and so on; nearly all the books written by those long resident in the country, with the exception of | publications subsidised or' commissioned by the Japanese Government, and printed in Japan, tell a different story." Mr. Chamberlain considers that the" easy victories of the Japanese over the , , Chinese do not make Japan a firstclass military power* "As regards equipment and modern weapons, the Japan-" ese army, despite recent intensive efforts at re-armament, is distinctly rin- , ferior to those; of the large continental European Powers,'* he writes. INFERIOR EQUIPMENT, v.'" "In many fields it has not progressed : far>,beyond the stage which, had been ; reached at the end of the World War. 'The tanks are of out-dated models; the aeroplanes are inferior.to those of the Soviet Unjon, Germany, and France in speed; and quality; the cavalry is still inadequately supplemented with mechanical units." • v > Miss Utley insists that the outside - world's estimate of Japan as a great military Power is absurdly wide of the mark. "Japan has never fought against • / a first-class Power," she states, /Her war in 1904-5 was against a dying Tsardom, and against disorganised armies thousands of miles from their base, ; and supplied by a single railway track. ;Even so, in spite of her brilliant vic"tories, she had by no means defeated ; Russia when peace was concluded. The ; Russian armies wer'e s still in Man,'churia prepared to fight again, and .only the revolutionary situation inside •Russia, coupled with the good offices iof the Americans at the peace conference in the U.S.'A., saved Japan, which iwfes very near to'a collapse. In 1916, ;at Tsingtao, a mere handful of Ger.imans—6ooo all told—held off a large • part of the Japanese fleet for three | months. - '"However closely. Japanese officers •today may or.may not resemble the ; Samurai," continues Miss Utley, "the ' ; modern Japanese soldier is usually an • ignorant peasant, semi-illiterate, trained 4 'in absolute obedience by a rigid discipline, inured to hardship and poor food, it is true, but not the best human material for 'modern v mechanised .armies. He has never been shown to

possess either initiative or intelligence, - aild it is commonly acknowledged that • though he makes a good infantryman, lie makes a poor pilot or mechanic, AIRMEN DEFICIENT.

"Thf deficiencies of the Japanese alr- • inen are well known, in particular ".their peculiar deficiency at high altitudes. The Japanese soldier is treated in the good old feudal'or 'paternal' style, as if he were a child or a halfwit, or if one cares to put another in- ' terpretation on his treatment, as if the authorities were so convinced of the weakness of Japan's political system as lo fear that one echo of dangerous thought would immediately destroy his far-famed loyalty, and transform him into a revolutionary. He is forbidden to read papers and /books not first approved by his regimental commander. Although he gets-three yen a month (3s 6d), he is not allowed to spend more than half of this princely sum on personal amusements. He has 1,1 even to show receipts for his expenditure. Letters of instruction are sent to his parents concerning his proper conduct. "Even as regards courage there is. little real experience to go upon. True that there were notable examples of mass courage in the Russo-Japanese ,War, but the Japanese have always been sustained by victories "won over weaker opponents, and have never sJiown how they would behave it meeting with Reverses. Winning victories over unarmed Chinese peasants or 'bandits,' or over ragged, starving, and almost unarmed Chinese soldiers, with the perfected weapons of modern warfare can hardly be held, even "by japan's most inveterate admirers, as proof of the great courage of Japanese soldiers. Actually there has been proof tbat when the Japanese mfeet Chinese troops which are everf partially equipped on modern lines, and have - had some modem training, the. advantage /does not lie with the Japanese."

And what of the Japanese morale under trial? "All foreign observers speak of the Japanese as a people subject to moods of violent , enthusiasm, alternating with extreme despair," states Miss Utley. "They are not stable and solid, but emotional and excitable, - full of vanity and yet quickly . cast down. These psychological characteristics , are shown in the violence of their political liie, ahd their enthusiasm for .'any new thing,' no less than by the abnormally large nufhber of in Japan. These suicides are not all, or even most of them, due to the economic circumstances of individuals. The suicides are mainly among young people, and they witness to a tendency quickly to despair and to abandon life, rather than struggle further. These characteristics are not of the kind to make a people endure the strain"- of a modern war. Taken together with tire fact J that Japan's modern history has accustomed ' her to' quick and easy victory, they meah that even some initial reverses in, a serious war -might be enough to cause despair and revolution. People who have been taught since childhood/that they are superior to any other nation, that their army is the best in the world, that theirsoldiers and sailors are the- brsrVest, and that their deistiny is to rule the world | are likely tci be di&mayed and completely discouraged at Ihe discovery that both the courage and the armaments ;of the enemy stre. eaual, or superior, to their own. For Japan's mad chauvinism is not based on tested valour and experience, but on a series of lucky victories over armies much- weaker than ■ her own. " She shows all the bluster and boastfulness of a bully; her behaviour is not that of a strong man, and her hysterical proclamations of her superiority to other nations is based on the people's compile ignorance of the world outside: Many Japanese soldiers really believe that the Japanese nation has mechanical devices unknown to the lesser breeds of men, and that her technical equipment as ai wholes is superior to that of all other nations.

, "DEGENERATE NATIONS." "At the same time they are continually being told that other;; nations—in particular the British—iare effete and degenerate and feeble, and that the Japanese people are braver, more loyal [and more spirited than any "other. ! "The real Japan is a country of halfstarved peasants; of children working long hours and always hungry, as in England a century ago; of women whose status, rich or poor, is practically that of slaves, and whose picturesque kimonos mock the: misery and frustration of their lives; of workers without rights to combine in tr,ade unioiitf i>r to form political parties to furthefv their Interest and improve their medieval standard life; of woipen dragging thejmines like pit ponies;/of sweated; domestic industry with women and children working 14 or IS hours a day for 2d or 3d; of crowded prisons and Asiatic torture practised to extract evidence; of murderous gangsters uncontrolled»by the police; of deep-seated and widespread corruption blighting the nation's strength apd poisoning its political life; of extreme contrasts between immense wealth and poverty; of extreme social tension- and revolutionary ferment. "The real Japan~is a seething cauldron of misery and injustice, social hatreds, revengeful passions, hysteria and chauvinism; a country of continuous conflict between' landlords and tenants, employers and workiers, monopolists and 6mall industrialists, and also between men and women and between the young and the old. Both social customs and the laws keep Women in subjection and give them a status only one degree removed from slavery. The Japanese woman has no legal responsibility, no social or political rights . . . she can be divorced without cause by the will of her husband; a married woman has no property tights, and no rights over her nhiirfrpn Women are forbidden by law to' join a political party, and by Social custom from going to places of entertainment their husbands, from dancing or from any social intercourse with the other sex. Yet whilst women remain subject to a medieval or patriarchal code which - deprives them of all liberty, they are exposed to all the brutality of, the early forms of capitalist exploitation. They may not enjoy the social or political rights of men, but they have to earn their living side by side with men in offices and factories and iarms." ,