JAPAN’S STRENGTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 February 1937, Page 11

JAPAN’S STRENGTH

CLAY OR IRON? Although it has been known for months that a close understanding existed between Germany and Japan, the disclosure that a working agreement, almost, if not quite, amounting to an’ alliance, has. been concluded between the two countries, makes Miss Utley’s book very timely reading. It is no • exaggeration to say that “Japan’s Feet of Clay” is the best review which has appeared in recent years of the whole position of Japan (writes A. H. Brodrick, in the London “Sunday Times,” reviewing “Japan’s Feet of Clay,” by Freda Utley.) It is of vital importance for us in Great Britain to know what is going on in the Far East. Appreciations about Japan vary from those which depict the country as a combination of England and Germany, with all the good points of both and the bad points of neither, to those which inform us that the entire Japanese complex is an elaborate bluff which would collapse at the first- contact with the might of a Great Power. The Japanese have never yet had to face/war with a first-class European Power, and from the geographical nature of things they probably nevei will have to. Bad as was the Russian organisation and immense as were the difficulties the- Russians had to encounter during the • Russo-Japanese war, the’ Japanese would have been beaten in a few more months of fighting. As it was, revolution at home •and' the pressure exercised by those groups which had lent money to the Japanese and saw themselves faced with a colossal bad debt induteed the Russians to make peace on terms which were , not really unfavourable. We concluded an alliance with Japan in 1902 from the' idea that Russia was an essential enemy of the British Empire. What we did was, to enable the Japanese to strike a blow at European prestige from which we all suffer to-day. What the Japanese tear now is not only Russian armed force —submarines and aeroplanes —but Communist propaganda at home and in. China. It is a mistake to think that the “revolution” of the sixties transformed Japan from a feudal and medieval State into a modern democracy. What happened was that to one oligarchy succeeded another. The new caste of soldiers, bankers, and industrialists who run Japan revived and. reinforced the myth of the Emperor’s divinity as a means of keeping the mass of the people in their place. As to question the truth of this myth is high treason, and exposes the perpetrator, moreover to the risk of assassination at the hands of some member of one of the “patriotic” societies, it is impossible to judge of the extent of the loyalty, of the people. Wealth is excessively concentrated in a few hands and the poverty of the masses is Unbelievable. They are required to do the work of Europeans on Asiatic J food—rice, beans,' seaweed, and a little raw fish as a luxury—for an; average wage for men —- women’s wages are still lower —of about 2/- a. day. The trades unions are powerless, and. their membership is under half a million.

DEMAND FOR ARMAMENTS. Political life is very corrupt and political assassination rife. The parties are under the entire control o the big trusts, which themselves are at theniercv of the aiiny. the cost ot which eats up 46 per cent, of the national expenditure. As in present-daj Germany, the whole impetus to the economic life of the country is given by the .demand for armaments.. In her chapter on the “Imminence of Social Revolution,” Miss Utley quotes as follows from an article oy tlie German General Ilaushoter: • To-day Japan is in the most dit.tr cult situation the ... country has experienced in the whole of its modern history. /The agricultural difficulties are beginning to develop into a. serious danger to the, country’s vigour andi unity. The industrial and export boom is beginning to show disturbing and contradictory features. The State finances, swept along on the ever-increasing tide of armaments,. are rapidly approaching a serious crisis. . . . In this difficult situation Japan| is without political leadership. . • ■ •! Anyone who closely follows develop-1 merit, in Japan must be. aware that | this situation of contradictory tendencies cannot last much longer. ... Miss Utley , demonstrates how fragile is the whole basis of Japan s finances and economy. The countiy lives on the export of raw silk to thej United States, and the capacity and, willingness of the U.S.A, to buy Japan- ( ese silk determine the prosperity of the misery of Japan. With the money obtained from America the Japanese import what they need in the way of raw materials, and they need almost everything, for their own country and, even Manchuria supply very little. Above all, the cotton to feed the staple textile industry mitst be imported. If the Americans were to exclude Japanese silk the whole edifice of Japanese economy would come toppling down. . i It may be mentioned in passing that

•although Japan pays us on an average C 8 000.000 a year in interest on loans, she only buys from us about 70,000,000 yen (about £4,300,000) worth oi goods. There is no graver error than to suppose that Japan is evolving in the direction of the Western democracies. The author writes: “Those who support Japan abroad, those . . . circles in Britain who imagine Japan to be Hie stable Power in the Far East . . . . . . should at last realise that they have to do with a powder magazine . . . full of mad hatred of the West, acute social antagonisms, the stored resentment, and fury of the millions of underclothed and underfed woikcrs . . . and of the desperately struggling petty bourgeoisie.”

EXTREMISTS AND MODERATES. This is emphatically a book to be read very carefully, for all that is written therein has a direct bearing on the I’l’tUi'e of our own Empire in the East. In her closing chapter Mi'S Utley summarises her essential contentions thus: — If the extremist military elements get complete control of the State. Japan’s Nemesis will be short and sharp, and she will sink into chaos and powerlessness. Actually the “moderates" pursue a policy as dangerous to the British Empire and the U.S.A, as that of the extremists. . . T’ry have learnt the lesson of Germany's defeat and will not, if they can avoid i'. make, a frontal attack on the Briti-di Empire,-or on the U.S.A., or even on the U.S.S.B. until they are- strongly

entrenched in Manchuria and North China, and have built up so powerful an industry that they feel they are invulnerable .... So long as Japan s bluff holds good, so long as she can slash provinces out of China, with no more than half-hearted protests ftom England and the U.S.A., the moderates aro icady to let the military have sway. ... If her moderate statesmen maintain the grip on the helm of State which they are now trying desperately to maintain, in face of murder. terror, and threats, and if the Western Powers continue to give financial and political support to these same “moderates,” then perhaps Japan may one day forge for herself feet of iron instead of feet of clay.