JAPAN'S WAR SPIRIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21109, 17 February 1932, Page 11

JAPAN'S WAR SPIRIT.

"WE MEAN BUSINESS." ATTITUDE TOWARD LEAGUE. CROWDS CHEER SOLDIERS. The tenseness of Japanese feeling in the dispute with China is revealed in a special edition in English of the Osaka Mainichi, a daily newspaper published in Osaka. '-'League or no League, we mean business; Japan means business—the business of finishing the job of putting an_ end to the insolence of Cliina, once and for all." This is the title of a photograph depicting a densely packed throng waving flags and lanterns as troops passed through the Osaka railway station in the early hours of November 16 pn their way to relieve the guards on thg Southern Manchuria Railway. It is stated that those who could not get inside the railway station lined the track, waving flags and lanterns for hours. The edition sets out to state the right 3 and wrongs of the dispute in Manchuria and a special article on the subject is contributed by Mr. Hikoichi Motoyama, president of the Osaka Mainichi Company. After stating that Manchuria does not belong to the Chinese by any merit of theirs or their fathers, but had been wrested from Russia by Japanese arms and given over to them, he says: "Our contention with China can bo reduced to a few simple queries:—(1) Does she recognise the treaties she has signed or not? (2) If she does, will she respect the rights of aliens obtained by the treaties ? (3) Does she exercise the primary duty of a State to protect the rights of aliens—not to mention those of her own people ? "Where can we appeal for redress?"Mr. Motoyama asks. "China says she is a sovereign State, a jural State. But where is the sovereign l>ody responsible for peace and order ? Where is legal protection to be sought ? The sovereignty of the Nanking Government is contested by the Cantonese and warlords." Regarding the intervention of the League of Nations, Mr. Motoyama says:— "With all our respect for the League, we are afraid that by undujy taking China into its protecting arms, it may be teaching the world that disi'egard for treaty rights is excusable; further, that, any behaviour, however discourteous, exasperating and provocative on the part of one nation to another, is allowable as long as the sword is not drawn nor a gun fired. By thus stressing upon peace, the League may divorce justice from it. Peace under such conditions is merely the absence of war and not a real peace."