WORLD POLITICS

Gisborne Times, Volume LV, Issue 6203, 7 October 1921, Page 5

WORLD POLITICS

WASHINGTON CONFERENCE. UNITED STATES AND-JAPAN. DREAM OF WAR FANTASTIC. (United Press Association—Copyright.) NEW YORK, October o. The Philadelphia Public Ledger’s Tokio correspondent interviewed Prince Tokugama, head_ of Japan’s delegation to the Washington _ Conference, who declared: ‘ *lt is my hope, which I will strive _ with all sincerity to ipake a reality, that from the conference will come all the benefit for mankind President Harding hoped for when he called the nations together. Every effort must be made to surround the delegates with an atmosphere of mutual trust and willingness to understand the other man’s viewpoint. We must be. slow to believe ill of others that will be told by professional agitators whowill be busy in Washington. There are mischief-makers in other countries who do not wish to see Japan and the United States good friends. Such friendships are against -■ their interests. They even hint at a Jap-anese-American war. We must do all we possibly can to make an absurdity of these hints. It is apparent that we in Japan suffer from rash hot-headed mischief-making journalists and authors, one of the worst of whom published a book entitled “Dream of War between the United States and Japan.” Even a dream of such an eventuality is fantastic. Much of the world’s trouble is due- to the failure of nations to understand one another. One of tbo ways in which Japan is misunderstood is continually to be charged with militarism. I hope to show this accusation is not deserved. I am essentially a civilian and have never had a military training or connections. I am peace-loving. Thus, at least, one of the Japanese delegates enters the conference in a state of mind for making Japanese-Ameriean war impossible,”