THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1932 GENEVA AND THE FAR EAST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21346, 22 November 1932, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1932 GENEVA AND THE FAR EAST

The far-reaching importance of the dispute between China and Japan concerning Manchuria is emphasised by the intense interest aroused on the occasion of the League Council's examination of the Lytton Report. This was available in Geneva some time ago, and it was expected that the discussion would open early in this month. However, in deference to Japan's request for time in which to distribute to Governments a reply to the findings, the discussion was postponed until this week. In the meantime, Governments have refrained from comment. Sir John Simon told a questioner in the House of Commons that the dispute was first of all a matter for the League, an answer consistent with the attitude that Britain, in common with other Powers, has adopted since the League commission was entrusted with the task of investigation on the spot. Now the matter becomes one for renewed effort to bring restraining pressure on the disputants. Hitherto, the data have been insufficient for final judgment. With the Lytton Report as a basis, and the representations of China and Japan completely made, that should soon be possible. Whether the two contending Powers will be impressed with the judgment of others is another question. Something has been achieved, however, in even the qualified readiness of both parties to submit the issue to renewed discussion by the League Council. Neither of them is satisfied with the findings of the commission, a fact that indicates the probable justice of its conclusions; for from the first it has been evident that there were faults on both sides. China's claims to sovereignty over Manchuria have been no stronger than Japan's treaty rights in the region, and against the apparently high-handed action of Japan must be put the obvious inability if not the unwillingness of China to carry out the treaty provisions. The position is manifestly difficult, yet a settlement is imperative in the interests of all the world. No more dangerous zone of international friction exists than the region of the Yellow Sea. There, for fully a hundred years, rival national ambitions have striven for mastery. The crisis of fourteen months ago was .only one of a sinister series. Year after year history has been made in a way forecasting future trouble. Around the Chinese "treaty ports" the record long wove its tangled skein. China, cherishing an agelong dream of becoming lord of the world, resented the entry of merchants from Europe, and consoled herself with the hope of exacting tribute from them as emissaries of suppliant peoples. In 1839 the illusion was partly dispelled, when British warships entered the Yellow Sea, and three years later, on the deck of a vessel lying in the Yangtse, the Treaty of Nanking was signed. Thus British subjects got the right to dwell and do business in five Chinese ports, and it was agreed that they should be subject to British law, administered by their own consuls, instead of the law of the land. So arose the doctrine of "extraterritoriality," destined to become and remain a cause of bitter Chinese grievance. Soon other Powers, by virtue of "most-favoured nation" clauses in their mutual covenants, shared the opportunities of trade. Concessions and leases were negotiated apace. Commerce grew, to China's advantage no less than that of the enterprising foreigner, and all might have been well with, both East and West there had not the aims of adjacent Powers entered to add new causes of discord. Russia, bent on an uninterrupted access to the Pacific, intrigued to possess Manchuria, which by the arising of the Manchu dynasty became incidentally a part of China, and then Japan, in need of an economic and strategic foothold, con tested this Russian advance. That triangle of rivalry has persisted, with varying fortunes of war, to our own day, with China degenerating from weakness to weakness through internecine strife, Japan increasing in national prowess, and Russia, baffled, eager to reassert supremacy. Out of this confusion the republic of Manchukuo has at length emerged. Its creation has added to the confusion, and is now the crux of the trouble at Geneva that threatens to break bounds. There are admissions that Japan has considerable rights, legal and moral, in determining to stand by her recognition of the new republic. Even in the United States, not given to think much good of Japan, these admissions are at least tacitly made. But independence for Manchukuo, while it means greater security for Japanese rights, means also an inroad on Chinese claims of sovereignty. Between these two contestants the question has become one of seemingly irreconcilable contention, and all the while there is the certainty that Russia will intervene with subtle purpose as soon as the convenient hour strikes. Generations of crossing ambitions have sown the seeds of as menacing a situation as ever the world has seen. No wonder the proceedings at Geneva are being followed with excited interest. The League has come, apparently, to its last opportunity of mediation. If this should be lost, the prestige of the League will be badly shaken. The only hope is that the very gravity of the peril will induce redoubled efforts to avert a state of open war between China and Japan. From the available news it is clear that these efforts are being made. So long as discussion continues there is a chance of a settlement that, while not wholly amicable, will prepare the way for some sort of modus vivendi allowing both Chinese and Japanese rights to have acknowledgment. The dispute has reached a stage where either an open rupture must come or a triumph be won for reasonable means of settling quarrels and allaying enmities.,