JAPANESE EXPANSION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160736, 24 August 1920, Page 4

JAPANESE EXPANSION.

Two other cabled items record Japanese intentions regarding territorial expansion. They are not going to pull out from Korea and Manchuria. They have said it several times already, and each time have given a different excuse for remaining. This time the excuse is the Bolsheviks, and the Japanese say they intend remaining till that danger is past. When it is, no doubt some other equally servceiable reason will be found. Already, indeed, the real reason is being given us—not that it has been unknown before. Professor Kimura, of the Tokio College of Commerce, has been speaking in America, and his Government, after its Korea-Man-churia pronouncement, must be wishing it had muzzled him. He stated that Japan needed expansion, and then, quite bluntly added that, ii she did not find a natural outlet).

she would force one. Read in conjunction with this year’s 40 million sterling armament bill, this is an interesting statement. Japan is effecting peaceful “penetration” in California, Hawaii, and Mexico, and penetration less peaceful iu Korea and Manchuria, while the gobbling up of Formosa is already completed. All this is causing apprehension, therefore Japan, if these “outlets” are not available peacefully, will “force” them. It has of course been evident for a long time, hut it is not so often that the faqt'is so openly and baldly stated as it has been by the Japanese professor.

EXPANSION AN ECONOMIC NECESSITY. One feature of the Japanese situation which worries the ordinary man is that he knows it is perfectly true that Japan is overcrowded, and that she really does need an outlet for her surplus population. He would like to see that surplus, on going abroad, merging into the population of the country where it settles. But he also realises that the spirit of nationhood prompts the Japanese, as it has prompted other races, to hold together in communities, which, in time, conceive the ambition of creating new Japans abroad, as is eVen now being done in California and Hawaii. He recognises the cause at home in Japan, and understands it, but feels troubled when he thinks of the danger arising abroad. He will be more worried over the same thing as he grows older, and his children and grandchildren, _in their turn, may be more worried still. Japan is not, the only overcrowded country. Some are already in that state, and their surplus is emigrating. Others are approaching that state, and their surplus, in turn, must emigrate also. If they have colonies, well and good. If not, then they must see their surplus people emigrate to, and become citizens of, other countries. If they wish to’ keep them, they must get colonies. Where the spirit of nationhood is strong, as in Japan, there is a revolt against losing born citizenship. Therefore they set about acquiring fields for colonisation, by peaceful means if possible, if not, then by force. Japan simply has not the land to feed all her people, and even though supplementing her own products by imports, she is still unable to feed them. Expansion, therefore, is an economic necessity for her. Were she ruled by humanitarians, they would effect that expansion by peaceful means. As it is, being ruled by ambitious imperialists and commercialists, she is preparing to use focre. And until her workers take charge, she will continue to do so, and we, in our turn, much as we may dislike it, must be prepared to resist.

THE WORLD FILLING UP. What is happening in Japan has happened, or is happening, or will happen to many other countries. Britain’s soil can feed, roughly, about fifteen millions at the outside. She became overcrowded, and resorted to manufacture and trade with foreign markets, thus securing imports of food in return. Even then, large numbers of her people had to emigrate, and this was easy, because there were British colonies to go to. But when all foreign markets are exploited and used up, not only by Britain, but by her commercial competitors, and when all foreign countries require their own products to feed their own increasing populations, what is Britain going to do then? Germany is approaching the same condition. America Is coming to it; a recent cable stated that the United States are now receiving a million new immigrants per year. Add to this the natural increase of the nativeborn population, and remember that a square mile win feed, according to its fertility, from 100 to 200 people, and it is a mere matter of arithmetical calculation to find how long it will, be before the three million square miles of the United States will be carrying all the people they can feed. So long as America can import food, well and good. But when the food exporting countries, in their turn, require all their food for their own increasing populations, what will America do? The world’s population is now increasing so fast, that a. few centuries will see many countries quite filled up. They must then find outlets for surplus population. And there are only two means of doing so—peacefully or by force. Expansion, as we have said, will be an economic necessity. But to effect it by force is not necessarily an economic necessity. Nevertheless, so long as some countries persist in the imperial idea, so long will there be future war's. The remedy for that idea is obvious. But not till the remedy is an accomplished fact in all, not merely some, countries, will it be safe to neglect national defence and national safety.

AN ALLEGED KOREAN PLOT. It would be interesting to know whether the true inwardness of the alleged Korean plot to assassinate visiting American legislators is just what the cable message implies, or whether it is not, an artful Japanese scheme. The allegation is that the plotters’ object is to create ill-feel-ing between Japan and the United States. The story is told by the Korean correspondent of the New York Times, which would lead the average man to believe more readily that there might be something in it than if it were put out by the Japanese, but there is nothing to show whether his information is correct, or whether it is a Japanese concoction. Not that it need be inferred that the Japanese possess no evidence of a plot. They have some skill in the using of agents provocateurs, who, in conditions such as exist iu Korea, would have no difficult task in promoting a faked conspiracy, and in inducing those to take part in it who, had they been left alone might have remained outside it. For the agents provocateurs to divulge the scheme to their Government so soon as it was ripe would, of course, be an easy matter. And considering Japan’s treatment of Korea and Koreans, as well as the strained feelings now existing between her and America, one cannot avoid the suspicion that the whole business may be found to he a carefully stage-managed affair, designed to convince Americans of Japan’s friendliness, and to divert their attention from the Californian and Hawaiian situations and Japanese .aims generally,, “