Sensation-mongers.

Japan In The Pacific.

A Little Sane Reasoning to Offset Sensation-mongers.

A NEW angle on the questions involved in the balance of power in the Pa cific, and the future plans of Japan, is presented by Mr. M. H. Ellis, in a short book outlining the defence position of Australia. While he admits the weak nesses of Imperial defence, he seeks to place actual facts in their true perspec tive and divested of sensationalism.

On the naval side he points out that Japan, which is the bugbear of the alarmists, is still in such a position that she could not attack Australia without, at the same time, fighting the whole British Empire, America and France, since any attack south of the equator or any breach of the Four-Power Treaty of 1922, which forbade the fortification of the Japanese mandate, would undoubt edly involve her in hostilities with the Great Powers mentioned. Furthermore, unless she could secure herself against attack by Russia and China, she could not afford to risk aggression so far from her bases. He outlines her foreign policy and shows that developments which the more sensational press has recently ad vertised as something new—such as the use of Bonin as a naval depot—took place initially as much as ten years ago.

In the event of actual war, he says, Britain could outbuild Japan six to one, and he instances the fact that in a single war year she completed eight capital battleships—nearly equal to the whole of Japan’s existing capital-ship navy; while he seeks to prove that,

without an enormous excess of cruiser strength, Japan could not defend her own trade routes, much less menace those of Britain.

Further, he points out that sea trans port, which would be vital to Japan in any war, does not exist in sufficient quantities for her uses. She has only 19 mercantile ships over 10,000 tons — the largest is 17,000 tons. To carry a force of 100,000 to invade Australia, to gether with requisite arms, she would need the whole of her mercantile marine, and, if she used it, she could not feed herself.

At the same time, the author does not cloak the alarming position in which the British and Australian navies may find themselves after 1936, unless a specific future programme of capital and cruiser shipbuilding is formulated, and unless the menace involved in the development of new German types of far-range light battleships is countered and guarded against.

The book presents Australia’s defence needs and the Pacific situation in their right perspective without cloaking weaknesses, but, at the same time, with out panic-mongering. It contains a wealth of official facts and figures woven into a readable and entertaining text. (Our copy from the Endeavour Press, Sydney; Is. 6d.) The P. & O. liner Mongolia will leave Sydney with a party of tourists for Noumea, New Caledonia, on January 13, 1934. The return voyage will be made via Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island.