Manawatu Daily Times Will Japan Leave The League ?

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6841, 23 April 1932, Page 4

Manawatu Daily Times Will Japan Leave The League ?

A movement is said to be growing apace in Japan to withdraw from the League of Nations as soon as the present troubles have been settled. The Japanese have felt aggrieved about world opinion of them and international action toward them ever since the first gun went off in Manchuria on September 18. They charge that the Secretariat of the League of Nations, which up till last September was trying to establish a position almost equivalent to that of financial guardian over China, prejudged the entire issue; that, using its great influence over both the Council and the Assembly, it gave an unfair turn to the deliberations, and that these, together with world opinion, have been unfair ever since. Japan’s relations with the League have been unique. To all the other great Powers (and, of course, the small Powers) Geneva has grown almost into a necessity. If it were to disappear, they would most probably have to create another one. But to Japan the League has always been something of a luxury. She has given more than she has received, and she has been glad to do so, not only because of her allegiance to the tenets of the League organisation, but also because of a more consequential benefit which she has thereby gained, namely, the enhancement of her prestige as a great Power. But, unlike the other great Powers, which now go to Geneva to settle problems with their neighbours, either within the framework of the League or outside of it, Japan’s foreign policy is more related with the non-members of the League. Fully half of her concerns are with the United States and Soviet Russia, while another quarter at least are connected with a passive or not fully responsible member, China. Japan has gone to Geneva, therefore, less to settle her own than other people’s problems. Newspapers arriving from Japan give a clear indication of Japanese feeling about the world condemnation which has of late been visited upon Japan’s policy toward China. They stress the difficulty of explaining an Oriental situation to an Occidental audience. In view of the titters with which every such effort is greeted at Geneva, they are wondering whether further efforts are worth while. There seems no sense, according to these comments, in a system which demands that Japan should obey the proprieties tow r ard China without any reference at all either to Japan’s economic necessities or to China’s anarchy. This is how the Japanese are looking at the international method of dealing with the Far Eastern crisis. It is a short step to the decision that the best thing for Japan is to retire to Asia and deal with her problems in her own way. The world might well pan&e in its condemnation of Japan long enough to consider the possibilities of this step. For it would have the most profound consequences on world, and particularly on Pacific, policy. It would possibly call for a complete re-orienta-tion of the Pacific policy of* the United States. And it would deprive the world as represented at Geneva of the services of a mediator whose contributions to the cause of European appeasement have been exceedingly valuable because they have been completely disinterested. Would the step gain much for Japan? It seems improbable. She could hardly withdraw also from, the Kellogg Pact and the Nine Power Treaty. In this crowded world, nations are compelled to live with everybody and not with a selected few. Withdrawal might leave Japan legally free from the Covenant’s obligations to employ peaceful methods; it cannot free her from the moral obligations imposed on modern nations by world opinion. She can withdraw from Geneva, but she cannot withdraw from the orbit of civilisation.