Japan’s Shadow On The Pacific

RESIDENTS in the Pacific Terri tories are looking at the Far East situation with astonishment and alarm. A year or two ago, their north-western horizon seemed clear and peaceful. To-day, a war-cloud hangs heavily in the north-west; and, behind it, Japan makes ready to fight any country which stands in the way of* her deter mination to control the Pacific, for the glory and enrichment of Japan.

The facts are indisputable; and the danger is so real that we need offer no apology for returning to the sub ject, again and again. The peoples of the Pacific must try to realise what is happening.

Pacific residents may feel surprise; but this development was foreseen, years ago, by long-sighted statesmen in Britain and America. The proof is seen in the new British base at Singapore, and in the powerful forti fications and fleet which the United.

States has placed in the north eastern Pacific. We may thank our gods that there were, in power, realists who could see what was go ing to happen in Japan, and who had the courage to prepare accordingly.

Thereby, we have been given a chance to study the situation, from behind the protection of Singapore and Hawaii, and their attendant fleets, and to get ready for the inevitable struggle.

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Europeans and A^ lat 1 ICS by the Japanese is unavoidable. There arp 100,000,000 people in Japan, and only about two-thirds of them can be maintained by their own land: the remainder must depend upon im ported goods. Thus, Japan has be come a manufacturing nation—she must export the products of her fac tories in order to import raw materials and foodstuffs. Therein lies deep-rooted trouble. Millions of Japanese workers live on less than a tenth of what European workers con sider necessary; Japanese labour costs are so low that Japanese manu facturers can undersell almost any European products in any market in the world. European countries, forced to protect the living standards of their people, have imposed higher and higher tariffs against Japanese goods.

The logic of those facts is inescap able. Japan must find either open markets for her manufactured goods, or new colonies for her enormous and growing surplus population. Since neither can be provided voluntarily by the other nations, only one course is open to Japan—armed and organ ised to the utmost of her capacity, she will go forth to destroy European control in the Western Pacific coun tries, and open up markets for her products, and lands for her swarm ing colonists. Japan recognises this now, but whether this knowledge has directed her policy of “westernisation” of her institutions and industries it is hard to say. No European can understand the mind of a Japanese; so we do not know, really, whether Japanese policy during the last two decades has been torn between two different schools of thought (Fascist —expansionists, who would seek world conquest by the sword, and Liberal- Radicals, who would gain the national ends without recourse to war), or whether the only difference of opinion was concerning the right time to strike. It does not matter, now—Japan is now controlled com pletely by the Fascist-Militarist expansionist section, and is com mitted irrevocably to the invasion of China, which, sooner or later, will bring her into conflict with the

European nations. All we can do now is to try to make an intelligent forecast of the probable course of events.

When they threw their country into the Chinese adventure, the Japanese militarists clearly counted on two things: That Britain and FTance, being uncertain of Germany and Italy, would not dare to send sufficient forces out of Europe to interfere in China; and that U.S.A. would decline to enter into any war where the Monroe Doctrine was not involved. Russia was a danger; but (we may suppose Japan argued) Russia cannot fight at the end of 4,000 miles of trans-Siberian railway.

Japan believed that she could over run and control China before any European nation would be free and able to interfere; and could thus bring an incredible number of Asiatic troops against the Europeans.

But it is not working out that way.

Although the Japanese armies are all over eastern China, the Chinese are resisting staunchly; Britain and France have remained calm—but have seen to it that the Chinese are getting good supplies of war materials; American public opinion,

wholly pro-Chinese, is slowly recog nising the inevitability of a struggle in the Pacific against Japan; and there is evidence that increasing supplies of war materials are reach ing the Chinese from Russia, through western China. It is possible that Japan will be seriously weakened, in both a military and an economic sense, through becoming “bogged” in China.

But that cannot change the course of events. Control of China will give Japan a new market, and huge re serves of raw materials and man power, but it will not alter the fact that, sooner or later, Japan must challenge European power in south eastern Asia and the Western Pacific.

Rather, if she is allowed time in which to conquer and mould China to her own ends, will Japan’s con trol of China strengthen her hands for the inevitable struggle.

Meanwhile, all European com munities in the Pacific—and espec ially British, Americans, French and Dutch —must co-operate in prepara tion for war. The prospect is hor rible, in the extreme, yet no one seems able to offer a peaceful solu

tion. On the one hand, we have scores of millions of Asiatics,, de manding new territory for their in creasing surplus population; while on the other hand, we have Pacific territories colonised and developed by Europeans, whose standards of living must be protected by the rigid exclusion of the Asiatic masses.