NO CHANCE OF WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6450, 22 February 1908, Page 9

NO CHANCE OF WAR

AMERICA AND JAPAN JINGO PRESS OUTBURSTS RIDICULED. THE POSITION OF BRITAIN. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received February’ 31, 9.29 p.m.) NEW YORK, February 21. The Hon. Whitelaw Reid, United States Ambassador to England, was entertained at a banquet last by the Pilgrims’ Club in New York, on the ovo of his returning to London. In tho course of a speech, Mr Read ridiculed the sensational nonsense pub-’ lished in the press about Britain’s obit gations to sustain Japan in the event of tho latter country being involved in a war against tho United States. First, ho said, there was not tho ghost of a probability of any war with Japan. In the second place, the Anglo-Japanese treaty simply provided that in tho event of any aggression on Japan’s recognised territorial rights in the East Great Britain would sustain her.

Only a lunatic, Mr Reid continued, oould believe that the United States would cross the Pacific and try to rob one of her oldest and truest friends. Ho referred to tho stately procession of warships peacefully bearing the American flag around the Western Hemisphere, recalling to America its commanding position, not merely in re lation to the Atlantic, but to the Pact fic Ocean, which is to carry the commerce of the twentieth century. EXODUS OF COOLIES FROM CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO. February 20. The newspapers are urgently discussing the question of the maintenance of tiho “open-door” in Manchuria, which is declared to bo the real poini at issue, immigration being a secondary matter. , Californians are puzzled by the extraordinary exodus homewards of ablebodied Japanese. Prominent Japanese have explained that they have been recalled by the Mikado.