Moved by these various considerations, the Japanese civil Govern. ment might very possibly agree to trade Northern Saghalien for a renewal of the Siberian _fishink rights and for other commercial considerations. This could not be accomplished, however, without the bitterest imaginable feud_ with the. entire military caste in Japan. The military could moreover make a very strong appeal. to the Japanese people. They would remind the public that Northern Saghalien was seized as a reprisal upon the Reds for-the atrocious slaughter of Japanese soldiers and civilians in Nikolaievsk, that no atonement for this outrage had been exacted and that now the Reds_ were threatening to cut off ore of Japan's most important sauces of food supply unless the Japanese Government humiliated itself, abandoned itself. abandoned its claims for reparation and meekly handed back Saghalien so that it could be turned over to American exploiters. They could dwell uponsJapan's pitiful shortage of mineral supplies, so essential to her industries and to both arms of her national defence.
They could and would point out that European and American diplomacy had conspired to weaken her hold upon such meagre resources as she controlled in China, that a timid civil administration had acquiesced in the withdrawal from Siberia and the complete loss of potential supplies there, that Saghalien is fabulously rich in oil coal and what not, and that the conspiracy between Russia and America to recover Saghalien was a conspiracy to cripple Japan's in dustries in time of peace and to isolate and starve her in time of war. Against such propaganda the Tapanese Government. even supposing that it came to terms with the Soviet, would have a very hard-fight with little chance of a successful issue unless the military spirit in \Tanan is much more subservient to diniomatic considerations than ihave any reason to believe.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.