THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MAY 6, 1912. JAPAN AND AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14985, 6 May 1912, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MAY 6, 1912. JAPAN AND AMERICA.

Despite Presidential denials there is a persistent belief throughout tho United States that Japan aims at the acquisition of a naval base on the Mexican coast. It is not surprising that the . public at largo should hold this opinion, for it seems as natural for Japan to seek footing on the eastern side of the Pacific as for European Powers to seek footing on ( the western side. The public is usually misinformed when its prejudices affect its views, and the statements of President Taft would receive more credence abroad than any vague assertions of ignorant politicians. The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, however, is regarded as one of the most important and best-informed of diplomatic bodies, and views held by any group of its members have some foundation in fact, and usually crystallise in American national policy. A number of members of this Committee l evidently regard the Japanese " menace" as very real and are prepared to demand American intervention to prevent Japan from obtaining even a commercial base in either of the American continents. On the surface this does not affect New Zealand or Australia, but if we look at the certain results of an American anti-Japanese policy it is evident that our interest is a pro? • found one. If Japan is excluded from expansion in North or South America and can see no hope of forcing her way through the barriers being set up by the United States, she will be compelled to turn her attention to expansion in other directions. •

AH large areas of land bordering on the Pacific, which are not already densely populated, are within the Anglo-Saxon spheres, for under this development of the Monroe doctrine now proceeding before our eyes the whole of the western coast of the Pacific from Vancouver to the Straits of Magellan is practically under American suzerainty. Japan can find little room for expansion in New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Fiji", Tahiti and similar groups, desirable as she may feel these limited areas to be. Australia and New Zealand are more important and more attractive, and any Japanese industrial occupation of minor Pacific islands or commercial encroachments in our colonial sphere cannot be lightly disregarded, for they are obvious indications of an alarming though inevitable tendency. 'In bolting" and locking all her doors the United States is certainly directing Asiatic energies to the southward.

It is very easy to dismiss all consideration of evident possibilities by declaring such forebodings to be unworthy of a civilised people. But this does not alter or affect the fundamental fact that we are excluding from our sparsely-populated Pacific colonies neighbouring races who number something like 800,000,000 and of whom more than half-are evidently capable of adopting our weapons and copying our military and naval tactics. The Japanese navy ranks among those of the Great European Powers; her army drove' the Russians from Southern Manchuria more easily than the Anglo-French allies drove them from the Crimea. Japan is spending this year upon her navy alone nearly £9,000,000, and as sho is now building her own ships and burning her own coal she obtains from her expenditure its full value in the cheapest of labour. A sovereign in Japan is easily worth two sovereigns in Britain, so that the Japanese Government is spending on her navy at a rate which in Europe would be represented by nearly twenty millions sterling. At face value she is spending on her navy alone about four shillings per head per annum. Serious as this is when Japan is the sole factor on the Asiatic side of the problem, it becomes overshadowed if we think of what China could do if her hordes were drawn upon to the same extent. China and Japan between them could spend £100,000,000 per annum upon their navies, and spend it at a wage-rate which would multiply its value several times as compared to what any European Power could do with the same amount of money. The revolution in China unmistakably means its reorganisation upon effective military lines, and it would be sheer madness for us to ignore what we may expect when China follows the example of Japan and frees herself from European domination by the simple process of arming herself in European fashion. By 1917 Japan will have a thoroughly modern navy. Yearly she is building great battleships and cruisers, destroyers and torpedo - boats. Steadily she is amassing a great fleet, providing great dockyards, training tens of thousands of seamen. It is preposterous to assume that Japan is doing all this for amusement, or that the revolutionary movement in China will not force the Chinese Government into the same path. Certainly, Japan is our ally and the Chinese reformers arc reported to be filled with admiration for all things European, but we exclude our allies from our British colonies and we refuse to admit that the Chinese are desirable

immigrants.- This is not a policy calculated to preserve peace and friendship between nations, and if the Japanese find themselves gradually excluded from the Americaa they are les3 unlikely than ever to submit with good grace to their exclusion from Australia and New Zealand.