RUSSIA AND JAPAN.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVII, Issue 4459, 19 October 1933, Page 4

RUSSIA AND JAPAN.

News from the East indicates that the tension between Japan and Russia is becoming very much more acute week by week. Japanese are reported to have arrested responsible Soviet employees of the Chinese Eastern Railways, and Soviet and Manchukuo officials are countermanding each other’s orders and appointments. Japan’s expansion policy is becoming more clear month by month. The army and navy appropriations for 1934-35 are the largest in Japanese history, being 45 per cent, above those for the current year. The country is dominated by the military and naval sections, which are bent on a policy for an extension of territory. The Blood Brotherhood composed of young Japanese naval officers who were responsible for the murder of the Finance Minister and Baron Takuma Dan, believe that they have a mission to free the coloured nations from white domination, and the Brotherhood is growing in strength. In order to foster the military spirit of the people the army carried out a sham air raid at night over Tokyo last July as part of a propaganda plan for the new army estimates. It was a spectacular affair and meant to impress on the people the danger of an air raid on the capital. A few months ago Japan exacted from the Soviet an apology for the killing of three Japanese fishermen on the Kamschatka coast; on the same day Japan apologised to Moscow for an attack on the Soviet commercial attache in Tokyo. A few days later the Japanese reported the seizure of a Japanese vessel by a Soviet trawler, while other such seizures have been reported from time to time. On the other hand Japanese police were reported to have seized two Russian vessels on suspicion of spying off an uninhabited island in the Kurile group. It is in this way the people of Japan are being fed from time to time with news which will tend to provoke alarm at the Soviet’s plans and make sentiment in favour of ever-increasing military expenditure.

It is quite evident that the Soviet does not want war with Japan, but it seems to be questionable as to whether she can avoid it. Japan is becoming more aggressive month by month, and it remains to be seen how far the Soviet can allow her to go without taking retaliative measures. It would be difficult to eomputate the fighting strength of the two countries. Japan would most certainly win on the seas, for she has one of the most powerful and efficient navies in the world; she also has a highly organised and well trained army. Russia’s military forces are an unknown quantity to the outside world, though the Soviet Miiltary Council has issued a warn-

ing that “Russia is sufficientlystrengthened to cope with her enemies.” Whether the Russians will prove better fighters than in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 is a matter of doubt, as then the Russians suffered disastrous defeat at the hands of the Japanese. Japan is putting up new records in other ways. The natural increase in the population last year was just over 1,000,000. The birth rate was the highest and the death rate the lowest on record in Japan. Birth control has evidently made no progress, though the age of marriage is slowly rising and this may have some effect on the growth of population.