The Sun SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1919. SIR JAMES ALLEN SEES YELLOW.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1628, 3 May 1919, Page 8

The Sun SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1919. SIR JAMES ALLEN SEES YELLOW.

Sir James All&v.has been dreaming| dreams about the Pacific—with a nightmare or two thrown in. In a speech yesterday at Dunedin he showed himself a pronounced victim of Yellow Peril. The occasion certainly; was the annual meeting of the Navy League, which usually, and to some extent inevitably, provokes dark maritime forebodings. What is the meaning of preparedness but in connection, with some definite menace ? The point is, however, that Sir James is not only Minister of Defence, but Acting-Prime Minister as well. On a matter of this kind he expresses something more than a casual and purely individual opinion. Has there not been some little talk in the world recently about a wonder called-the League of Nations? . If there has, and the discussion means anything at all, then the head of the Government should pause a little before announcing his contempt so openly. Boiled down, his remarks in Dunedin come roughly to this: that the discussions in Paris are "hot air." No league, he says in effect, will keep the peace, and we had better all realise it at once. Well, there are two questions. First, is the Dunedin speech the opinion of Sir James Alien as an individual, and nothing more than that? If it is, he should be a little more guarded in giving expression to such views. If it in any way reflects the attitude of Cabinet, then presumably our "inseparables" were sent abroad with a mandate from the Government to stand fast on the ancient foundations of our safety, and put wool in their ears when the Big Four were about. And the second question is, of what dark manoeuvres precisely is the Minister afraid? Only sentimentalists and fools believe that the hearts of mankind have suddenly changed; but discretion, all the same, may still seem the better part of valour. What Japan could she would—in the absence, that is to say, of any thought at all of "the day after." But to "spread her wings right over the Pacific," as Sir James Allen definitely fears she may, involves a good deal more than Nipponising the Marshalls. This she has done already in the last four years. No top-dressing of German efficiency could have made a bigger change in the group than Japan has effected during her military occupation. Harbours have been built, roads made, plantations developed, disease stamped out. Even the languorous native, one is told, perspires now in the midday sun in the interests of the new lord and master. But the Pacific is a somewhat large pool. Occupying it in the south, and determined to occupy it till the ice-cap returns, are (3j000,000- Australasians. In 25 years the figures will have doubled. Flanking it on the east, and sworn to stay there while the Rocky Mountains stand, are 100,000,000 jealous Americans. Patrolling it by agreement of the all-but-united West—Britain, France, Italy, the' ■'.United Stales—is the world's

most efficient'fleet. With all due respect for the Defence Minister's arithmetic, we shall continue to sleep with a good deal of comfort. It is. expressly laid, down, s too, in the mandatory terms, that defences are for all time forhidden. New Zealand is not to fortify Samoa—we are pledged to curb our "Imperialism"— and Japan is to abstain from making a naval base of her advance post of coral. The only thing this potential enemy can do is to assault us aerially or commercially. Certainly, if Tokio made a lunge at us one night by air, the throbbing engines would welcome a rest under the whispering palms of the Marshalls. If, too, free immigration were to be permitted, With unrestricted dumping of oriental wares, Nippon's island ward by the Equator would make a convenient outpost. But neither of these dangers is in sight. And there is another possibility that is too often ignored. There may come a tune some day when there will be a colour ! war on an appalling scale. Present; indications hardly suggest it. But before Japan provokes a conflict in the Pacific —to grant, for the moment, that a conflict is just barely conceivable—she will have exhaxisted the possibilities of expansion nearer home. Meanwhile, she is given a prominent place in the World League, with recognition of her "paramount influence" in China. There are bigger hopes there than in exclusive Australasia.