Idealists, Americans and the Proposed

Pacific Pact

A PACIFIC PACT —“a regional pact of non-aggression, to which all countries in the Pacific would subscribe” —is the outstanding proposal of the British Imperial Conference, now in session.

The proposal was made by Mr. Lyons, Prime Minister of Australia.

At first, the idea was widely and warmly acclaimed. It was held to repre sent a method by which the British Empire and the United States could get together, protect their common interests in the Pacific—that is, uphold the status quo —and, maybe, make important tariff concessions to each other. It was thought that France, Holland and Portugal would join willingly in the Pact, and that Japan eventually would come in. The plan appeared to give shape to what most people, with logical and practical minds, have been thinking.

Then the academic idealists and the hair-splitters came into the picture, and began to batter the Lyons proposal. We have been told that “official opinion in Washington is cold”—the gentlemen there being of the opinion that the Washington Naval Agreement (dis carded and buried these two years past) and the Kellogg Pact (a most praise

worthy bit of idealism) would be quite sufficient for all genuine peace-seekers, if only they were supported in a sincere and proper manner.

Now the University professors are having their say. One, who was allowed to broadcast his Sunday-school arguments through the Australian radio network, wants to know how the incidence of the Pact would be defined —would it include China and Peru!—and how sanctions would be applied, and how could Japan be induced to enter. Another, equally futile, has suggested that the League of Nations—that lamented skeleton that still occasionally rattles its bones at Geneva —should be entrusted with the job of maintaining peace in the Pacific.

Why cannot American idealists and University philosophers get their feet down upon the hard earth and recognise brutal facts, and realise that neither logic, nor high aspiration, nor brotherly love will maintain peace in the Pacific, so long as there are countries in the Pacific which are under-populated and apparently occupiable, and other countries which are overcrowded to the point of suffocation ?

The outstanding, overwhelming factor

in the Pacific situation today is Japan.

Japan, judged by European standards, is an honourable nation—she has most scrupulously observed every treaty obli gation she ever entered into. But the Japan of today is not the Japan of yester day—she has become industrialised and gravely over-populated. She must have overseas trade, so that her swarming industrial population may be fed; and she must have new territory, to which her surplus people may be sent. We may not forget the logic of those facts.

The Elder Statesmen of Japan may desire international peace and harmony.

But they cannot ignore the ancient laws which have ruled humankind since the days of the jungle: an overcrowded nation, faced with the alternatives of suffocation and decay at home, or war abroad, takes its sword in hand and goes out to find new territory.

That is what Japan will do—would have done ere this, had it not been for her conviction that the Anglo-Saxon Powers will stand together in the Pacific.

Who but blind fools, or idealists with their heads in the clouds, or sheltered academic theorists who seem to think that the world is run on logic and reason and altruism, could fail to see the signs ?

Every month, in this journal, we report details of the outwards and southwards thrust of Japanese traders, fishers, poachers, colonisers, and seekers after raw materials. The Japanese, every day

now, are knocking at the doors of the Philippines, of Borneo, of the Dutch East Indies, of New Guinea. More than once recently, there has been something of menace in the Tokio announcements about Japan’s South Seas activities and aspirations.

We dare not ignore political conditions in Japan. The army and navy, whose policy is aggressive and expansionist, directly control the Government. But Parliament is controlled by the two great parties—Minseito (business and indus trial classes) and Seiyukai (landowners) —who will not form a Government, and the present Government can do little ex cept govern. In March, the army chiefs forced a general election, hoping thus to get control of Parliament. The elec tion, at the end of April, resulted: Min

seito, 179; Seiyukai, 175; Socialist, 37; Showakai (now the Government party), 19: others, 46.

But all the elements of an explosion are present in that political situation: and if the militarists ever,should get control, the repercussions in the Pacific would be quick, and very serious.

The European nations recognise Janan’s difficulties, and sympathise with them.

But—and here is another ancient, funda mental law of humankind!—self-preser vation is our first consideration. Once that is assured the nations, in confer ence, might try to find a way to provide for the clamorous needs of Japan’s ex panding trade and population.

We Pacific peoples must not —dare not —close our eyes against stark facts. Mr.

Lyons’s plan of a Pacific Pact is a simple acknowledgement of those facts, and an agreement that, for the preservation of our lives and homes, we shall stand together for the maintenance of the status quo. The plan is in danger of being wrecked by Americans and professors.

We cannot forget that it was an Ameri can professor who gave us the League of Nations—fathered by Woodrow Wil son, abandoned by the United States, adopted by John Bull, defended to the point of self-destruction by the British Empire, and finally left to bawl itself to death at Geneva, as a beautiful but useless example of impractical idealism.