Tokyo, July 20. costing between Yen 400,000,000 and denial went far towards eliminating the race for naval armaments in the, Pacific, thereby lifting from the shoulders of tens of millions of taxpayers the burden of further imposts. The London Naval Conference, designed to mark time, was a further earnest that the naval status ao would be adhered to.
The Effects of 1931 tHe Y the London naval treaty of 1930. The designed to offset America's new to te biliary craft and a consider-ser
able expansion of the air arm. The na mediate reasons given for this vast, new construction are:—(1) America's decision to bring her fleet to treaty limits; (2) the virtual isolation in which Japan finds herself as a result of having arbitrarily turned her back on the League of Nations and on international. ce-operation; and (8) the necessity for adequate naval Strength to ensure success for fan's continental policy:
Strenuous Propaganda Where the money i to come for wnsion of the Navy is be at present, but the militarists rood to be baulked to-day for granted that the money will be secured by one means or another. The nation at large hax had it dined into its ears ad aseam, by uch persuasive means as the press, platform and that now or never is the ti solidate her ent, to maint China and to proceed with her new policy of exercising a free hand in astern Asia. They have been told, day in and day out, that on this depend he' future of the country ai if Japan's continental programme suffers a setback; the country itself will sustain a fatal blow. Great Britain and America are already being represented as vitting athwart the path of Japan's manifest destiny." Geneva ix even yet. being trotted forth, with parrot-like persistency, ax further proof that the world is planning to corner Japan and that the main conspirators in this "unheard-of plot" are the two Anglo-Saxon nations. These peals to both national pride and fear will easily ensure the warlords "here securing the money needed for the aggrandizement of their respective departmental needs.
What is of greater significance, however, ig that Japan is out for aval equality with Great Britain and the United States when the limitations imposed by the London naval treaty expire in 1936. This determination to be content in strength to of the United States or Great not, it would seem, revived the consideration that such important matter deserves. Even when the Washington Naval Conference was convened, the Japanese gave it to be understood, by inference rather than by direct statement, that Japan would not always he satisfied with a small tio, Not much attention was paid to this and Great Britain, on the one hand, calmly proceeded' to reduce ker ficer so as to comply with the agreement reached for naval parity between Great Britain and America: while the United States, on the other hand, perhaps. with' the idea of setting a good example, not ly failed to build up to' the length allotted her, but even did not adequately" re} annwated tonnage. the Britich fleet has lost its position of world supremacy and this has made necessary thus far for Great Britain to depend on the goodwill, more or less, of the Japanese., Govarnment in the Western Pacific.
No great harm accrued through this and Great Britain's act of self-
But in 1931 events occurred on inland of Asia calculated to upset completely the balance of power in the Far East and the relation to it of the mn of Great Bri States, These events are very recent history and can be summed Uup in a couple of lines: Japan has [consummated her control over Manchuria under the camouflage of the independent state of Manchukuo, has seized that rich province of eho! and even threatened to set a new State in North China south of the Great Wall. The reply of the world has been to refuse to recognize "Manchukuo," and the world will undoubtedly' consistently refuse to recognize any other puppet creations. In other words, all diplomatic verbiage aside, that the Powers, including the two Principal and most powerful naval nations, have taken, or rather have been compelled to take, a position hostile to Japanese, arbitrary ex-continent. with Washington and London takes Jon a new, even momentous, signi cance. This is all the more so because London and Washington are firmly wedded to the policy of the Open Door in China, a doctrine that Japan, is trying to shelve. In fact, Japan's future naval desires are of larger import to the United States which dominates such a ieveat portion of the Pacif littoral.
The Japanese are likely to request that they be permitted to build up to the strengths of Great Britain and America, Rather will they request that the two principal maritime powers scale down their fleets. If Great Briatin and the United States assent, the adjustment can be done without ade single ton to the existing fighting ships of the world.
Some idea of Japanese intentions in this respect were revealed when Admiral Osami Nagano at Geneva declared that all Japan is aiming at y and that she makes a ction between offensive and defensive naval weapons: He suggested the abolition of aircraft fearriers and of flying decks on capital ships; the abolition of long-range submarines, but the retention of short-range under-water boats designed for const defence; reduction in the maximum tonnage of each type of surface war-eral limitation of the maximum no dearth of glib-tongued Japanese putting forth' their best dialectical skill to argue that the Japanese plan is the only one that will ensure justice and peace attached to. Tt is preposterous, however, to think that Great Britain with her already scanty fleet can consent to any such thing who it recollected that her responsi ties are scattered al! over the earth; neither can the United States, with her enormous coast-line and her duty of protecting Central and South America, ever agree to any such fantastic project, Tokyo's plan, boiled down, I amounts this: Japan could neither strike at the West, nor be struck at. She would, without any cost, have secured absolute naval security. She would be safe and supreme in the East, able to do what she liked in China. How much more dependent will Great Britain, then, be on the goodwill of Tokyo. The Japanese plan, if successful, will "ensure for Japan absolute safety and the unchallenged hegemany of the entire Far East. It would be quixotic to expect the Keen-eyed naval experts of the world's two greatest maritime nations to. miss the implications gerniane in the Japanese project an agreement on the lines that Japan is expected to propose is not forthcoming, or if parity ie not accorded. to Japan, Japanese public ists declare that then Japan would
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.