Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, AUG. 13, 1942. JAPAN'S AIMS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 217, 13 August 1942, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, AUG. 13, 1942. JAPAN'S AIMS.

The picture of General Tojo, tlie Japanese Premier, striving to establish himself as a dictator, which comes from a former manager of the United Press at Tokio, may not be extravagant. He has an excellent pattern in Signor Mussolini, who by his dictatorship in Italy has forced the King into comparative obscurity, and it is quite conceivable that, to make himself the first of a modern line of Shoguus—the Generals who virtually ruled Japan until the office was abolished in the last century—he would not hesitate to force his Emperor into the background of Japan's political activities. With his assumption of Premier and the War and Home portfolios in October last General Tojo became a full General, and he declared "Japan's holy task" to be the successful settlement of the China affair and the establishment of the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere." The implementing of this task has given Japan great initial successes. She bestrides the Western Pacific like a mighty Colossus, and the action in the Solomon Islands is aimed to deprive her of a most valuable forward base, striking at the Allied Pacific communications and any attempt to use [Australia as a springboard for a counter-offensive.

Japan's lone-term intentions may explain why Tojo has aspirations towards a dictatorship. A Japanese map of the "coprosperity sphere" captured-by the Chinese Government includes China, India, and Siberia, in fact almost the whole Asiatic continent; the islands of the Southern Seas including the Netherlands East Indies, and the northern fringe of Australia. "A lunatic's dream" was how the Chinese spokesman described it, but lie added that the map represents Japan's settled national policy in the same way as the notorious Tanaka memorial, which served as a blue print of Japanese expansion. And a jyood deal of the dream has come true. This policy, a commentator has observed, cannot be labelled a militarist adventure with the implication that it has been forced upon a reluctant nation by a handful of Generals and Admirals. The preparation of the conquest dates from the Twenty-one Demands which Japan attempted to extort from a distracted China during the last European War. Since then, though successive Governments have signed or adhered to the League Covenant, the Washingston Treaties, and the Kellogg Pact, some out of liberalism and'i others out of prudence, the national outlook has become increasingly chauvinistic. The Japanese nation is behind its military rulers who can produce a substantial record of conquests since September, 1931, when Manchuria was the first goal. At the head of these rulers is General Tojo, whose ten months of office have witnessed amazing conquests from which the United Nations will drive the enemy. That he should treat the Emperor in a "cocksure, almost defiant manner" seems to leave no room to doubt whither Japan is moving.