JAPAN AGAIN.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14038, 22 April 1920, Page 2

JAPAN AGAIN.

DIPLOMACY BLUNDERS. (By R.- O. Matheson.) TOKYO, JAPAN, March 3. Interrupting a 6tbrmy debate on the Opposition Bill to provide manhood suffrage for Japan, Premier Mara., mounted the steps of the rostrum in the Lower House on Friday, and read an Imperial rescript bringing the session to all unexpected close, and dissolving the Diet; Tjie press' and people and some of tiles politicians are still endeavoring to discover thfe real reason ior the suilliiiary action, 1 The Premier and his colleagues explain that it is because the demonstrations worked up" by the advocates of manhood suffrage were becoming daiigcrous. and that the noisy elements which had been encouraged to parade with flags and bugles, clash with, and defy, the police, and invade the sacred precincts of the Diet itself, were getting out of hand, and might turn their demonstrations into something much more menacing to the Government than merely a demand for the right to vote. The sponsors of the manhood suffrage measure declare that there is a popular demand for its enactment, says Mr Kara, therefore the Govefniiietit has taken theiri at their word, a'iid will let the people decide; This explanation, however, is to quite a large extent camouflage. Tfife Diet was not dissolved to prevent further suffrage demonstrations, but to prevent publicity for what had been referred to in some of the last- of the Diet debates as "a diplomatic blunder." concerning which tlie leaders of tile Opposition threatened to appeal to the nation if their Suffrage Bill were not adopted, ltather than permit this; the Hara Cabinet choked off all further debate through dissolution, and is reiving on the police control of the press to-keep the public in ignorance of "the diplomatic blunder" until events abroad so shape themselves that any...unpleasantness from publicity, will be improbable. Only a. handful 111. Japan know- what this '^diplomatic'blunder" was, and ex-; cept for the fact that it has been the cause of -breaking; off a momentous and haS precipit&%d a general election in Japan, it would not seem at allimportant abroad, or at least have none of the tremendous importance which the Japanese officials attach to it. Here, however, it; is going to mean, according to inside report, the forced resignation of Viscount Uchida, the Foreign Minister, and a. consequent sbakeup in the diplomatic service. The Foreign Office issues a small, official monthly publication, known as the Gaiko Iho, printed for private circulation among the Government- officials, in which appears translations of articles deemed of importance from the foreign press. Foreign Office officials mark articles which they thiulf worthy of translation, and these are passed to the senior students of the Foreign Language School, who translate them into Japanese for publication for the information of the higher Government employees. The last issue duly appeared and was distributed, and then there was thunder from the Foreign Office chief, a hasty re-gathering of all copies sent out-, an order of official' silence, and a hasty muzzling of the press. "What the Gaika Iho had spread before its readers, under the official seal of the Foreign Office, was the particulars of an alleged private audience Marquis Salonji and Baron Mc&kino, uiic two Japanese delegates at Versailles, had had in London with King George, in the course of which his Britannic .Majesty had expressed in undiplomatic language his private opinion of President Woodrow Wilson. According to what can be learned of the report m the Foreign Office publication, King George of England dubbed President Wilson, of Washington, as an officious busybodv. who wanted to measure the whole world with his Republican footrule, and alter everything that did not square with the Constitution of the United States.. His Majesty, it is reported, expressed his regret that through American objection at Versailles the Japanese claim for racial equalitv was not endorsed and v>~n'ten into the Covenant of the League of Nations, and otherwise "talked frankly. However, the article came to be published. It was immediately seen that it would never do to have it given official sanction by the .Japanese bocernment.. What King George major ma"y not have said to two convoys of Japan in private conversation is no subject for a published report, especially when it involves the noad o another nation which both England and .Japan are particularly anxious not to displease at the present moment, Both nations want the United States to ratifv the Peace Treaty and enter the League of Nations, while Japan is particularly anxious to renew the Anglo-Japanese Alliance without exciting any suspicion in the United States concerning it. The matter of the appearance of the article, therefore, was something the Hara Administration wanted hushed up and forgotten a? soon as possible, and without any publicity. .IVUnfortunately, however, the disastrous publication had been read _b\ some of the members of the Opposition, and almost every hour during recent debates someone has referred tc "that • diplomatic blunder," and wanted to know how long it would be before the resignation of the Foreign Minister and his highest associates in the Foreign Office of Peers went into executive session twice over the matter, with the Premier and the Foreign Minister mailing copious explanations, but the thing was too good for the Opposition to drop, and the- anxiety ol the Government to cover up too apparent to permit the opportunity tc harass to be passed up. Finally it reached the point where the Opposition threntened to tip the fat into the fire, and the Premier, to forestall (anything of the kind, seized upon the suffrage -demonstrations as his excuse, and peremptorily dissolved the Lower House, and! precipitated a general election, to be held in May, according tc the, best guesses.*