JAPAN’S DILEMMA

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 May 1936, Page 10

JAPAN’S DILEMMA

MORE REVOLTS PREDICTED

SAN FRANCISCO, March 25. A vivid talk on the Japanese situation was given to members of the San Francisco Commonwealth Club by Mr. John Thompson, foreign news editor of the San Francisco Daily News, just returned from an extensive tour of the Orient, after interviewing leading statesmen. Mr. Thompson, who took for his subject, “Back of the Scenes in the Japanese Revolt,” claimed to have been the last newspaperman to interview Saito before that statesman’s assassination in Tokio.

Mr. Thompson said that when the British and American Governments ceased their activities, the Japanese interpreted that let-up as a sign of weakness on the part of both nations, and went right ahead with plans in the Orient. He endeavoured to disabuse the American mind that all was serene in Japan. “There will be more revolts because the methods used by the army will be brought into use by those opposed to them,” he averred. “There are opposing factions and machine-gunning methods of the army will be offset, with the result that the army will be driven to very des- ! perate measures, culminating in nothI ing short of a foreign war. “Whenever you have a lot of trouble I nt home, take the trouble off your own shoulders and pin it on someone I else, is the slogan there,” said Mr. Thompson. “The way the Japanese Army is moving further into China dhere is every promise of a collision with the Russians. But the whole Japanese economic situation is based on war industry, and as soon as the army and navy discover they cannot supply contracts for the war industry there will be unemployment at home. Meanwhile munitions are pilling up. The army is pressing for a strong foreign policy. When I spoke to the commanding officer of the Japanese Army he said: 'We are going to get after the Chinese Reds,’ and I said ’That will take 100,000 men to do it.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘A hundred thousand will be ready for it.’

A DRAIN ON JAPAN

“It will be an awful drain on Japan,” declared Mr. Thompson. “Give out war contracts, pay out the money, tax them for it. That is the angle in Japan. 1 believe. The Japanese have a tremendous job in Manchuria, where there are 30,000,000 Chinese and 200.000 Japanese. The Japanese are doing a very good job of it in Manchuria, but the attitude of the Chinese was expressed to me by a prominent Chinese leader: 'Very soon the’ Japanese go out and we get all these i fine buildings/ “The Japanese are very nervous over it and don’t know what the next day will give them. In Manchuria thousands of Chinese are filling the stations, leaving that part of the Orient, and the Japanese are extremely chagrined as these Chinese are taking, with them the money they have earned from the Japanese. The Japanese rejily bj' saying: ‘We will have to go after the yen and follow them into North China.” “I learned that the Japanese will erect new factories in North China to compete with their own factories in Japan. This only complicates the economic situation. “The Japanese have started on a road that will not have a successful I finish. I am friendly with the Japanese . people, but it Js different with the military. The Japanese, through the i peculiar conditions into which they -

have been forced, have embarked on a road that with all these little incidents, is mystifying and no one I knows what the solution will be. al- | though it is . generally recognised I t here will .be a grand smash-up unless they change their tactics. The army and civilians will have to come to some agreement. The armed forces are not. responsible to anybody but the Emperor, and no Cabinet has anything to say against, the army.” After commenting on the fact that Japanese officials, when modelling their cbiistitufion years ago, sent a mission to Britain and Germany to j survey the Governmental systems in those Europen countries, and that I when consulting Prince Bismarck j they were advised to keep the Government from the militarists, Mr. Thompson added: “We are on the Pacific and carjnot pack up and go home. We should have a more sympathetic uiiderstanding with the Japanese people to get. them out of ’ffiis "hole. We can look on with some, understanding, and if possible try and help them, but it looks to me

■ I that the greatest help will have to come from their own side. I “We cannot be insensible to any I undue accretion of power, as we are ton the same ocean with them, and anything that would make the JapI'aifckc unduly strong would be a difficult problem for us, because with an unduly strong nation in the hands of a military clique it is to our interests to work with tlieiri moderates, but to keep our own powder dry.” . , This last remark was acclaimed with cheering.