THE JAPANESE CRISIS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22193, 21 August 1935, Page 4

THE JAPANESE CRISIS

MEASURES FOR DEFENCE FEAR OF RUSSIAN ATTACK "The Japanese Crisis" was tho subject of an address given by Mr. W. Walder Mackay at a meeting; of the Round Table Club on Monday ovoning. Tho president, Miss I. Tanner, presided. "One of tho things that surprised mo most when 1 visited Japan was tho fact that, just as Germany before tho war had its ' Dor Tag,' so tho Japanese nation has tho counterpart of that in a word which means 'tho time of crisis'," Mr. Mackay said. "This word has boon coined by tho Japanese and their present Cabinet is known by tho name." Mr. Mackay described tho defenco measures which were being taken in Japan, including tho days of mock warfaro and tho "gas mask" days, upon which, at a given signal, every person had to don a mask, tho police having tho power to arrest all who did not comply with the regulation. With such measures in operation people naturally asked who it was that Japan feared. Japan would like Hongkong but was not likely to attempt to tako it by force, noithor did she regard the Singapore base as a menace. Japan had no fear of Britain. Sho had not liked tho additions which tho United States had made to her navy in recent years, howover, nor tho fact that tho United States naval manoeuvres had boon concentrated in tho Pacific. "Russia is the country which Japan fears," Mr. Mackay said. "Japan was very nervous 15 months ago when tho treaty with Russia and the United States was consummated, this treaty being really a military pact under the guise of a commercial one. Japan knows that she has something very definite to fear from a combination of Russia and the United States and that is probably the only combination which could beat her. She knows that in the airfields south of Vladivostok is the fastest and finest fleet of bombing machines to-day manned by young Bolsheviks, men avowed to avenge tho defeat of Russia by Japan in 1905. Therefore, Japan is taking no risks as far as preparations for an air attack are concerned."

An immediate outbreak of hostilities between Japan and Russia was not likely, Mr. Mackay said. Moscow leaders" at the present time did not want war, for before hostilities opened the duplication of tho trans-Siberian railway had to bo completed. Neither did Russia wish to jeopardise her present economic system, which was yet ill-adapted for any emergency such as war. Russian loaders realised that if Russia were defeated by Japan an internal revolt would break out, with the result that the Communistic regime and its leaders would be overthrown for ever.