Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1907. A SIGNIFICANT MOVE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11058, 26 August 1907, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1907. A SIGNIFICANT MOVE.

It will be seen by our cable news today that President Roosevelt, after con sultation with tho Navy Department, has given his sanction to the voyage of a large fleet of American warships into Pacific waters. The contemplated trip to the Philippines has apparently been abandoned, and the journey to be undertaken is via Magellan Straits to San Francisco. Doubtless the decision not to venture into Eastern waters has been made with a view to avoid giving offence' to the susceptibilities of the Japanese, who, m consequence of the slightly strained relations between the two countries over the treatment of Japanese m California, might have been tempted to regard a visit of the fleet to the Philippines as a demonstration for their edification. Nevertheless, though the ostensible reason given for sending Uncle Sam's navy on its long ocean voyage is that the ships and men may have a necessary measure of sea training, there can be little doubt that the movement is being made purely with the object of affording protection to the most vulnerable portion of the United States, the long seaboard on the Pacific Coast, and that the step is being taken, not with any bellicose object, simply and solely as a measure of protection and national life assurance. That President Roosevelt's motives are m the highest degree pacific no one who had studied his fine character will be prepared to deny, and probably the able men who control the destinies of Japan will recognise the reasonableness of the step taken by the United States is a matter of national policy. There is, however, to be reckoned with m Japan, as m most countries of the West, a jingo section of the community, liable at times to be carried away under the

impulse of a strong patriotism to an attitude of into]erance ( and if all accounts be true, public opinion -in Japan ha« recently been considerably inflamed by the Jingoists, iPßPntful Of the treatment oi then- compatriots m California, and there has grown up a strong feeling of hostility to the United States which may some day force the hands of the Mikado's Government to a conflict. The matter was thus summed up a few weeks ngo the newspaper Niche Niche, of Tokyo : "Even traditional friendship will not escape a rupture should incidents like those that, have occurred at San Francisco be repeated. Whether or not the sufferers aro children or restaurant keepers and tho site of persecution be lijnited to California, it does not alter the fact that our compatriots are victims of anti-Japan-ese outrages. Japanese go there under treaty protection. What we want are not so many expressions of civilised sentiments but one act of efficient protection of the treaty rights of Japanese. The waste paper box is no destination for a treaty between Japan and the United States." Viscount Tani, leader of the Progressives m the Upper House of Japan, is reported to have said: "Should diplomacy fail to bring about a satisfactory solution the only way open to us is an appeal to arms." Couiu> Okuma, formerly Premier, callea upon his Government to demand an apology for the assaults on Japanese citizens. Such is the temper of Japan, and a responsible German newspaper recently declared that almost the entire diplomatic world, almost every admiralty, believes a war between" Japan and the United States to be imminent." "There is not any question," a German naval architect who has returned from Japan is reported to have said, "that Japan is rushing preparations for a naval war. In navy and army circles m Japan there is v burning ambition, born ot what Americans call big-headedness, to wipe the United States off the map." And attention has been callod to tho fact that Japan has been busy, completing alliances with Great Britain, Russia and France, that will render it impracticable for another nation involved m war with Japan to acquire any of its opponent's territory as the result of victory. Nothing seems more fatuous to German organs than the American notion that Japan could not m the long run afford war. Japan could hot, to give the language of the Zukunft, afford peace. Her people are starving. They cannot find the means, necessary for developing their .resources. They are "m desperate need" of room for expansion; Why, then, should they shrink from a war with the United States, promising them every advantage and little risk 1 Commander Capelle, a Gorman 'naval offt. cor on the retired list. Writes to the same effect'in the Kmes* Zeitung. It'is obvious, he thinks, that Japan is preparing for a great war. It is probable, he surmises, that the war will not be long do layed. It will be a struggle to the death between the vast wealth of the Washington government on the one hand and the invincible national pride of Nippon on the other. The Philippines must Certainly be wrested from the United, States by Japan. Nothing of all this can be admitted m the official world. No mention of war is made m the dispatches. But nobody on either side is deceived. "The United States and Japan," writes Commander Capelle, "feel instinctively that differences are arising between them Which must be decided sooner or later by force of arms." The transfer of the American Navy to the Pacific Coast may be taken as the answer to this war talk, and it remains to be seen whether it is an effective reply.