NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21999, 4 January 1935, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

JAPAN .AND NAVAL TREATIES

"The feeling is strong among the Japanese pcoplo to-day that in order to maintain their prestige and sense of security they must bo freed as soon as possible from tho humiliating shackles of the existing naval treaties," writes Captain Sekine, of the Japanese Naval Intelligence Bureau, in an offi-cially-authorised article on tho naval policy of his country, contributed to Current History, New York. "1 ho opinion seems to be prevalent abroad," he adds, "that Japan is now dominated by a group of reactionaries, and that the time will come, sooner or later, when the Liberals will regain their former strength and position. To that observation we would reply that nothing could bo wider of the mark, for the public sentiment prevailing in Japan to-day reflects tho opinion of a preponderant majority of our population; and what is thought in some quarters to have been the pciiod of ascendancy of l^ihorn 1 ism in our country was the period during which tho Japanese people as a whole maintained the policy of watchful waiting. But the experiences of tho last ten years have convinced us that th.it policy docs not further the cause of peace in the Orient." CO-EDUCATIONAL SCHOOLS On tho eve of his retirement, Mr. J. H. Bad ley, founder and headmaster of Bedales School, reviews in the Times Educational Supplement his experience of boarding-school co-education, which lie pioneered in England, '"lo anyone first confronted with tho idea it seems inevitable that each sex must lose some of its own qualities and take on those of the other —that boys must become milksops and girls hoydens. If co-educa-tion meant putting a few boys into a school organised for girls, or vice versa, this might very well bo tho result. But where there is equality in numbers and in ages, and also in tho distribution of the two sexes on the staff, tho fear proves to be groundless. For the boy it is undoubtedly a humanising influence. In language, behaviour, and the tendency to appeal to forco, such an influence is all to the good. That it does not mean any loss of manliness or slackening of strenuous effort is sufficiently shown by the athletic and scholarship records of the leading coeducational schools. For tho girl tho gain in a broadening of outlook and a more bracing atmosphere is even more evident. Few visitors to a co-educational school fail to be struck with the atmosphere of contentment and the general feeling of happiness that prevails. In these days, especially, when tho old framework of life is visibly breaking lip and the old sanctions of conduct have lost their hold, it will be for those who arc boys and girls to-day to build a new framework and to work out an ethical code to meet the new conditions of life; and since for the first time in history this will be the joint work of both together, it is the more fitting that they should come to their task prepared by a training of life and work together in the school." NATIONAL SECURITY "More than ten years of patience and passivity having proved of no avail," continues Captain Sekine, "w« have come to believe seriously and with all sincerity that to take the initiative in fostering harmony and cooperation among the races of tho Orient is the national destiny and mission of Japan, which is calculated to contribute to the promotion of the welfare of mankind throughout the world. It must be said that, much as we dread the very thought of an armament rac» with other Powers, the need for guaranteeing our national security is of such overwhelmingly greater importance in our eyes that if such a race is forced upon us through the refusal of the other Powers to listen to our contentions, the Japanese people would be prepared to take up the challenge Their minds being made up 011 this point, neither the threat of an armament race nor the thought of its "dire consequences to the nation could possibly shake them. It may bo said with confidence that no plan will satisfy our ]>eople unless the following points are incorporated therein: moval of the disadvantageous restrictions of the existing treaties. (2) Abolition of discriminatory ratios. (3) Guarantoo of national security. (4) Acquisition of autonomy in national defence. (5) The realisation of a logical disarmament regime through voluntary reductions on the part of Powers now most highly armed under the existing treaties, and the fostering of a situation in which no nation will bo able to menace another. What Japan is demanding, in tho last analysis, is absolute equality in tho right of national existence. And all we ask to that end is that the Powers now most strongly armed should carry out reductions of their own accord so that all the nations concerned may enjoy an unperturbed sense of security." MR. WELLS ON WAR In a recent article, Mr. H. G. Wells challenges the assertion that war is inevitable. He believes that he sees the .beginning of a movement for the worldwide control of many different activities—a conception which lie terms "the New Scale of dealing with human affairs." "When it has been fully grasped, and its political, social and mental implications begin to be realised, then wo shall bo entering upon a new phase in the history of our race. We shall realise better than wo do now that, after all, tho Great War was the beginning of the end of human fragmentation; that it was, at any rate, the opening phase of a process of convulsive adjustment which will ultimately abolish war. The adjustment is a vastly bigger and more difficult job than we realised in 1914; there may bo some huge jars and dislocations still ahead, but it is going 011. I am quite prepared to believe that tliero are governments in tho world senseless enough to declare war, but I do not think there remain any governments in the world with the moral force and the intelligence to hold a war together, as the Great War was held together until 1918. I believe this is more widely known and understood than our old-fashioned military authorities like to think. I am not one of those who believe in any more 'inevitable' wars. Man is not perhaps a very reasonable animal, but he is not wholly an instinctive one. In tho light of the obvious, be is capable of reasonable collective action. Thirty or 40 years is a big piece of a human life, but it is only .1 page in human history. Tho lessons i)f the war are still, being assimilated, slowly but surely. Who can say, in the .vorld to-day, whether adjustment may ant win out in our present discords and perplexities? Who dare deny even now that the Great War of 1914-1918 was not only the first but the last , World War?"