JAPAN AND PEACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21962, 20 November 1934, Page 8

JAPAN AND PEACE

The urgency of attention to the international problem created by Japan's determination to maintain control of island groups in the Pacific, notwithstanding her withdrawal from the League of Nations, is daily incr<wising. When notice of withdrawal from League membership was given, the Japanese Government took occasion to say that these mandated islands would not be relinquished and any attempt to compel their surrender would be forcibly resisted. At the time no serious notice was taken except to discuss the academic question whether a nation not in the League could hold any of the mandates. Since then no effort has been made either to deal practically with this question or to grapple with the larger problem of which it is an important part. The naval parleys now proceeding in London, involving; the relations of Britain and the United States with Japan, touch this larger problem in a merely preliminary and non-com-mittal way. Something definite must speedily be done, lest the peace of the world be broken by a clash of national policies in the Pacific. The new commander of the combined Japanese battle fleet has reiterated his country's declaration that the mandated islands will be resolutely held, and the challenging nature of this statement is evoking grave comment. That New Zealand ought to be concerned about the matter is the declared opinion of Mr. Milner, rector of the Waitaki High School,, who has had opportunity of studying the position closely as a delegate to the Conference of Pacific Relations. He regards the menace to peace as real, and urges a friendly study by the interested nations of Japan's "powerful case," which rests on economic necessity, not merely militant aggressiveness. By co-operation between Britain and the United States, he believes, the crisis may best be handled—in a conference to which these two should invite Japan—and asks that the New Zealand Government should try to bring about this co-operation. From the Marquis of Lothian, who is well versed in the subject and fully qualified to speak, comes a discussion of it on similar lines. He advocates an immediate agreement between the two Englishspeaking countries, in order to exert pressure on Japan—in her own interest—to seek amicably a solution of the problem. It is becoming increasingly evident that only by such means, not by ignoring Japan's case nor by merely defiant resistance of it, can a peril of the first magnitude be averted.