Jan, 23.
Count Uchida delivered himself of some admirable sentiments on Saturday in expounding Japan's foreign policy. His courteous approval of the League of Nations to which he extended a helping han: on behalf of Japan, suggested coi laboration, tinged but slightly with any claim to responsibility for the formation of a well-meaning but intangible organisation, It, nevertheless, displayed 4 cordiality. which' has not always been conspicuous in Japanese pronouncements garding Geacva. It gives a faint hope of a satisfactory outcome of the precarious discussions in the Committee of Nineteen, to which many people will he glad to see that Dr. Benes has return. ed. Count Uchida laid emphasis on Japan's tele in the preser. tion of peace in the Far Bast; it plainly hinted at a Montoe doctrine of which due account will be taken. Its apprehension for the security of Japan must, to the student of geographical and political facts, seem i little overdone, Signs of aggression against Japan are certainly difficult to detect, either in the recent past or inthe immediate future. Count Uchida expresses! praiseworthy anxiety for obs ing the obligations of treaty engagements but he preferred rigidity in that respect to apply to Japan's relations with Manchoukuo, while declaring for elasticity in treatment of' the Covenant whicn concerned his country's wider association with international ce-operation, His reservation, in respect of the Covenant and its bearing on China's membership of the League, had a speciously logical reference to the abnormal conditions prevailing in a country working out revolutionary sale tion, Its weakness lay post facto application to events solely arising from Japanese action. Count Uchida handicapped himself and, at the same time, made his task par doxically easier by examining the present, crisis in the light only of its development since the formal recognition of Man choukuo by Japan, On the one hand he spared himself the necessity of reviewing the circumstances which the Lytton Commission was appointed to investigate; on the other he eschewed any defence of the initiatory Mukden putsch which can hardly be ignored in taking stock of the whole situation: Either the Japanese Government has taken opportunist advantage of a local episode and tacked on to its developments a policy of far-reaching implications or, on September 18, 1931, it delibera-rely launched an extensive plan of action the essence of which advances toward the absorption lay in successive, if camouflaged,
of Manchurian territory.
On the status of Manchukuo Count Uchida decides to stand or fall. He apparently does not perceive the dangers of a course which raises grave issues regarding his country's diplomacy. He himself, as president of the South "Manchuria Railway November 1931, went out of his way to decry the then tentative efforts to bring Mr. Henry Yi to the fore, Less than four months later he was in person present at the installation of Mr. Henry Pu Yi in the Regency of Manchukuo. Since then much has happened. Nothing has occurred to suggest that the Manchukuo administration could for a moment function without the support of the Japanese Army and the complete domination of its policy by Japanese officials,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.