JAPANESE MILITARISM

Evening Star, Issue 21881, 19 November 1934, Page 9

JAPANESE MILITARISM

MEHACE TO WORLD PEACE NEED FOR ANGLO-AMERICAN UNITY Press Association —By Telegraph Copyright LONDON, November 18. (Received November 19, at 9 a.m.) The Marquess of Lothian, in an article in the ‘ Observer 1 discussing the crisis in the Pacific, says: “The situation is full of menace to everybody, including Japan. She is being led by short-sighted military leaders to abandon a far-sighted policy which led to the Washington treaties, and plunge into the same diplomacy which brought Germany to catastrophe in 1914, and which must similarly ruin Japan. It is absolutely certain that; the United States and the whole of the British Commonwealth must ultimately be driven together in resistance to Japanese militarism. The root of the immediate difficulty lies in fhe inability of Britain and the United States to take that united resolute action> which would strengthen the moderates in Japan. If Britain and the United States stand together now Japan’s militarists will soon decide that it is better to come to terms than to incur the opposition of both.” THE NAVAL PROBLEM JAPAN’S DEMAND FOR EQUALITY. LONDON, November 18. (Received November 19, at 1.10 p.m.) The ‘ Daily Telegraph’s ’ naval correspondent says that Japanese’ circles are of opinion that the naval conversations have reached a most critical stage, and that the crucial ratio problem is as far from solution as ever. The Japanese state that Britain and the United States must how realise that

Japan’s demand for equality to replace the 5-5-3 ratio is not a mere bargaining gambit. Its unqualified acceptance must be one of the first conditions for co-operation in naval disarmament. Japan has as much moral right as anyone to a first-rank navy. The Washington ratios were merely a temporary expedient. The correspondent adds that against the Japanese claim it might be urged that the Japanese navy is already so strong relatively that it absolutely controls the Far Eastern waters. MR MILNER REVIEWS THE POSITION [Per United Press Association.] TIMABU, November 18. At a gathering of the Rotary Clubs of Christchurch, Timaru, Oamaru, and Dunedin last night, Mr Frank Milner, rector of the Waitaki Boys’ High School, made reference to the ominous statement contained in the cable news as emanating from the new head of the Japanese Navy. Mr Milner last year attended a conference on Pacific Relations at Banff. He said it was made clear by the attitude of the Japanese delegates that behind Japan’s aggressiveness was a stark economic drive. Japan had to meet an enormous increase of population and that could only be done in four ways. Intensive scientific agriculture had proved a failure. The Japanese were not an emigrating people. Birth control, while tolerated by the Government, was not practised by the people, and the only other solution was increased industrialisation. To do this Japan had to have raw material. If she could not get it the children would starve and Japan would fight, and there was no more heavily armed nation in the world to-day. Japan had a powerful case, Mr.Milner said, but if the nations stood off an explosion would come. He suggested cooperation between Britain and America, who should call Japan to a friendly conference. He had asked the New Zealand Government if representations on these lines had been made and had been told that the Government knew nothing of it. The Royal Institute of International Affairs wanted New Zealand to speak, if we waited the world would again see a hideous sacrifice of youth The problem demanded the best statesmanship of the world to-day.