NOTES AMD COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14565, 30 December 1910, Page 4

NOTES AMD COMMENTS.

m JAPANESE DESIGNS. Mr. B. L. Putnam Weale, -who writes with authority 011 Far Eastern subjects, has just published an instructive and thoughtful book on " The Conflict of Colour." He sees danger ahead in the aggressive ambition of Japan. Within fourteen years Japan has gained Formosa, Corea, the. Liaotung Territory, and Southern Saghalien, -which are far greater in area than the Japanese Isles themselves. Besides this, Japan is already the virtual arbiter of an area in Manchuria larger than Great Britain and Ireland; Japanese statesmen are under no illusions. They know that if the empire to-day has no enemies it has still to reckon with the ambition of powerful rivals. There are three of those rivals, Mr. Weale asserts, that Japan dreads. The first and greatest of them is Russia; the apprehension in this case is due in part to the relatively speaking negative results achieved by the late war, and still more because if the Tfar is to be arbiter of the fate of China, the peril is great, since the frontiers of Russia envelop those of China. Japan fears America because of its wealth and all that such resources are capable of rapidly accomplishing in a crisis. Lastly, she fears China because of its , latent strength and untold possibilities. :' At this moment Japan is not arming against Russia in particular,. or against America, or against China. She is arming merely because of the fact that these three mighty countries exist in her immediate neighbourhood, that is, on the Pacific Ocean." Japan realises that the striking power of any one of them might suddenly expand, and therefore she is making great financial sacrifices in order to keep ahead for a few decades of her rivals for power in the Far East, so as to be in the position to take advantage of any favourable circumstances which may arise, and by quickness and completed preparations be in the position to take sudden and unexpected action. t Mr. Weale points out that that is what she did in her Chinese war and in her Russian war, and he evidently thinks that, given the opport unity she will attempt the same bold coup again.