JAPAN'S SILENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22820, 30 August 1937, Page 8

JAPAN'S SILENCE

Japan's avoidance of official comment on the shooting of the British Ambassador to China cannot escape critical notice. There was no denying that the outrage was committed by Japanese airmen, but certain excuses were immediately put forward by the responsible local command. These excuses, however, were apparently not adopted by the Japanese Government. All that was done by way of atonement was undertaken by the Japanese Foreign Office and Admiralty, which as independent departments sent expressions of regret. Neither from the Emperor nor from his Prime Minister has come a word on" behalf of the Government as fully constituted. The Daily Telegraph's Tokio correspondent says that, beyond those subordinate expressions of regret, there is absolute refusal to make any official statement, also that, obviously in compliance with Government instructions, not a single Japanese newspaper has made any comment on the shooting. This studied silence is doubtless due to uneasiness about the incident. Japan's war on China has three fronts. In North fchina the assault makes evident progress; at Shanghai and thereabouts it is indecisive, but winning territorial gains; on the international front, where Japan's actions face a judgment that will eventually have to be respected, as Japanese diplomats well know, the national cause is in jeopardy and cannot be succoured by their mere assertions about anything that has happened. Hence the apprehension reported to be felt in Tokio about the wounding of the Ambassador. The incident cannot be viewed by Britain and other non-Asiatic Powers as negligible. It is a direct outcome of the way in which Japan has conducted this attack on China, and a particularly shocking instance of the excesses to which those representing her in the field are eager to go in their alleged "protection" of a less-civilised people and "disciplining" of its savage soldiery. The British protest has probably been couched in appropriately severe terms.