Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1941. MR MATSUOKA'S MISSION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 90, 15 March 1941, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1941. MR MATSUOKA'S MISSION.

Japan's Foreign Minister has left on a visit to Berlin and Rome to meet the Dictators of Europe. It is expected, too, that he will call on M. Stalin when passing through Moscow. Commentators are showing the keenest interest in.this visit to the two major parties to the Tripartite Pact on the eve of the Nazis' spring offensive. The wellinformed Tokio correspondent of the London Times quotes the view of anti-Axis circles in Japan—that the journey is an evil omen for the Democracies. They contend that it has nothing of a fact-fmdin'g expedition, but has ulterior motives in that Cabinet and the High Command met on at least four occasions prior to Mr Matsuoka's departure, and this would not have been necessary if the journey were only a gesture. There has been a suggestion lately that Mr Matsuoka is anxious to mediate in the European War, "being profoundly impressed with the sense of disaster that may befall civilisation if the war continues till Europe's leading nations are bled white," but he has disavowed any such intention, no doubt because Berlin has, if reports are correct, plainly told Japan that she is not desirous of mediation at this stage. Mr Matsuoka himself assorts that he "is longing to explain the real significance of Japan's foreign policy, and to tighten Axis co-operation with the aim of making substantial contributions toward the construction of a lasting peace and the new world order which forms the objective of the Three-Power Pact." Mr Matsuoka makes it quite clear that he is firmly in alliance with the principles of Nazism and Fascism, and that the new world order is one to be directed by aggression and its hand-maiden, war. The events in regard to Thailand, where the French have now abruptly discovered that the peace terms have been dictated by Japan solely m her own interests, so that her southern movement shall have fuller protection, indicate Mr Matsuoka's idea of a new world order.

The mission of the present Konoye. Government was to provide a new foreign policy and a new internal structure. Within three months of its accession to office the alliance with Germany and Italy had been signed and the advent of the "new structure" was honoured. Alliance and structure are twins, ■ a Tokio commentator says in pointing out that the Japanese, in studying the German successes against their several years' war in China, attributed the former to totalitarian organisation, believing that similar methods introduced into Japan would give similar results. The new structure, he says, was to effect "the repletion of armaments adequate for the execution of national politics," and foreign . po-

licy was to "advance the national fortune by taking a far-sighted view of the changes in the international situation." These principles have been guiding Japan in the subsequent months, but she is not entirely a confident nation. She has had stern warnings from the United States and Britain and German infiltration is not welcomed by many Japanese. "The tragedy of present day Japan," the commentator says, "is that she has chosen the illusory military short cut to greatness instead of the broad road along which the Emperor Meiji guided her during half a century of unprecedented progress. She has forgotten that her real strength lies in her intelligent workers and enterprising industrialists, not in the army which began and cannot finish the war in China." This, broadly, is the tragedy of all Dictator States and must prove their, undoing.