JAPAN AND INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7852, 14 July 1911, Page 6

JAPAN AND INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

Both President Taft and Sir Edward Grey score heavily over Japan’s agreement to such an important modification of tho Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1905 as was reported in our cablegrams yesterday. As tho chief apostle of the gospel of international arbitration, the President has good reason to lie proud of the very practical turn which has now been given to what a section of the British and American press had deemed to be a purely theoretical project. Americans must naturally be pleased to witness what amounts in reality to a frank admission by Japan that she contemplates no aggressive movement in the Pacific to which exception could be taken by the United ' States—at least not until the expiry of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1915. The tactful smoothing over by both! the interested parties of the immigra-; tion difficulties in which a hot-headed ! party in the Eastern States saw possi-j bilities of war has no doubt paved the way for acceptance by Japan of Sir Edward Grey’s proposals for a I modification of tho treatv. Once again J

Mr Taft has proved himself tho " safe man,’’ always valuable to a nation. Sir Edward Grey, too, is rightly entitled to kudos over tho new departure in Anglo-Japanese relations. Not only in the United States hut in Great Britain the possibility of the latter Power becoming, by the terms of the treaty as it originally existed, embroiled in a serious dispute with America has long been regarded with anxiety. The altered conditions of the ■alliance now forbid any such possibility. “The provisions concerning mutual assistance in time of war shall be inapplicable when either of the allies is fighting a nation with which tho other has an arbitration treaty.” So reads tho new clause, and there is no mistaking its purport. America and Great Britain cannot now be dragged into any dispute not solvable by the projected arbitration treaty. Great Britain is no longer faced by the possibility of having to support an Asiatic ally against a nation with which her ties of race and mutual interest have of late been so substantially strengthened. Here, indeed, is a triumph for those who are striving to substitute international arbitration for appeals to arms. How far Japan’s acquiescence in Groat Britain’s proposal may affect European politics it is, perhaps, premature to speculate upon. Assuredly, however, tho cessation of any necessity to maintain a strong Pacific squadron must mean that a greater importance will attach to America’s naval strength ‘in the Atlantic. Whether the new turn matters have taken may tempt the American Government to reduce its naval construction estimates by cutting down tho extended shipbuilding pre-gramme inaugurated by Mr Eoose volt and adhered to by his successor remains to bo seen. At Berlin it is quite possible that the release of Great tiritain from a position which might, sooner or later, have caused her serious embarrassment may not be very popular. The Kaiser has assumed that international arbitration was an empty dream. But the freeing of Great Britain and America from the toils of a possible complication in the Pacific proves that, after all, an international agreement may have a concrete result—if it goes . far enough. For Germany any policy which diverts British and American warships from tho Pacific to the Atlantic is a policy which may in time cause the Lord of Potsdam to sit down and think very hard. But that the new policy must make for peace no careful student of world politics can reasonably doubt.