JAPAN’S FOLLY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 263, 4 October 1940, Page 7

JAPAN’S FOLLY.

MORTGAGED THE FUTURE.

LONDON. Oct. 3. “As a result o! the signing of the tripartite pact, Japan has plunged on a course fraught with incalculable consequences for advantages which, even on the shortest view, appear neglig ible,” declares the Times in a leading article. “Japan has already been drawing every possible advantage from the war'in Europe. Germany is already making a supreme effort to crush Britain and neutralise the United States, and she cajinot do more even to please Japan. ■‘The history of the last twenty yeart explains, but does not condone, Japan’s latest act of folly and miscalculation. Japan began to travel rapidly along the road to disaster after the attack oa China. There is a curious parallelism between the situation in Germany and Japan. Both occupied positions particularly qualifying them lor economic leadership over neighbouring countries. Japan, like Germany, could have chosen the path of peaceful cooperation and played a dominant role it* China’s economic development, but Japan, like Germany, lacked the necessary self-confidence and plunged recklessly on the path of ruthless domination.

DELIBERATE PROVOCATION

“Japan s progress in three years has been accompanied by a deliberate provocation of the Western Powers, n,ngiand has not forgotten tiie brutai behaviour at Tientsin last summer, the. arrests of British subjects in lokio. the tragic and suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Reuter’s correspondent, and the further stage in the campaign of intimidation. These tilings did not happen by cuance, but were part ot a calculated policy now extending to Americans. “The tripartite pact marks a further, almost a last, step on this path. It seems deliberately to close tne door. On looking back it must regretfully be admitted that the former cautious Japanese loreign policy has been abandoned. China has received the fact with unreserved wiselyseeing that Japan, by deliberately courting • hostility to Britain, the Dominions, and the United States, lias fully mortgaged her. future and involved herselr in the consequences of Germany’s coming defeat.”