Anti-Militarist Students: Navy's New Minister: Japan's Leanings to Russia: Rodney Gilbert Attacked in Tokio From Our Own Correspondent.
Tokio, May 19.
The violent scenes enacted by the students of the Waseda University of Tokio, one of the largest educational establishments in the Japanese Empire, with an enrollment of over 10.000 pupils, during and after the inaugural meeting of the Association for Popularizing Military Science which was formed by the faculty and a minority of the students, show the changing ideas that rule that world of thought in Japan to-day. Those students opposed to the formation of such an association, openly ridiculed the. dead and the professors, scoffed at the high military and naval officers who were present at the gathering including the Vice-Minister of War and the commander of the Imperial Guards, derided the speakers from the highest to the lowest and banded themselves into a counter-association the object of which is to prevent what they call the militarization of the schools of Japan. Some years ago, when Professor Uyesugi, of the Tokio Imperial University, organized an association of university students for military training no®protest of any sort was raised and the fact was} hailed by the public, the press and the magazines. The sorry results that have attended the efforts of the faculty of Waseda University to revive a martial spirit speak eloquently for the revolution in the! domain of thought that has since about in the minds of the younger generation. among the primary, middle and higher educationa] institutions by detailing military officers on active service for this purpose. This means, as the "'Comiuri," a Liberal Japanese daily says, the militarization of education and therefore the militarization of the whole nation. os The appointment of Admiral Takarabe to the portfolio of naval affairs makes one ask whether the waning star of Satsuma is likely to come into the ascendancy again. For some time, the office of Mi ster of the Navy and that of Premier were held by one and the same person—the Prime Minister. The late Mr. Kei Hara, Japan's first commoner premier, when he sent Admiral Kato (then Minister of the Navy in the Hara Cabinet) to the Washington conference, assumed both' offices, thereby setting a precedent in a civilian holding the office of Navy Minister. His successor, Viscount Takahashi, also a civilian, held both offices and when Admiral Kato was selected, on the fall of the Takahashi Cabinet, to guide the ship of state in Japan, he too had to fill both. offices. The need for the appointment of a separate individual to the Navy post has been felt for some time and speculation was rife as to who would be the choice of the Cabinet. Now that the choice has been finally made and the appointment sanctioned by the Emperor. interesting rumours are afloat regarding the Satsuma clan, The trouble did not finish with the inaugural meeting for the promotion of military science ending in a fiasco. Those of the students, about 70 in round—numbers who approved of the project came into violent collision with several of the young men who had taken a leading part in making the inaugural meeting the ridiculous affair it twined out to be, and @ battle royal was waged between the two factions which grew to such serious proportion that a force of police had to be rushed from the nearest police station to curb the tempers of the lovers and non-lovers of military science. Feeling still runs high and police have been instructed to keep a lynx-eyed watch on the pupils. These events have j brought the Waseda university incident into the limelight of Japan's domestic affairs. The military authorities have been known to cherish' a plan for the dissemination of military training amongst Japanese youths and the Waseda University trouble shows the angle of vision 6f the students. What form the scheme of the military authorities will take is not yet known, but rumour has it that} they aim at the enforcement of thorough-going military education Among the many clans of Japan, two—Choshu and Satsuma—have been leaving their impress on the nation. The former has been responsible for the making of the fine military machine that Japan to-day possesses, while the Satsuma clan has been generally associated with the Navy. The Satsuma clan, however, had a terrible fall from power and from the tie} position it enjoyed in the estimation of the nation when, in 1913, Count Yama-more, chief of the Satsumas and then Prime Minister, was alleged to have been implicated in the notorious Siemens-Schuchert naval scandal, when it was stated that the interests of the Navy were Doing serificed for private profit. j Public indignation boiled over and Count Y: was forced to resign from power. He went into retirement and has not been associated with the big happenings in Japan during the important period of time since 1913 and the present day. As Admiral Takarabe is Count Yamamoto's son-in-law, some believe that the appointment shows that the head of the Satsuma is back in high official favour again and that he is likely to emerge from his long seclusion. The theory can be entertained, however only if one takes for granted that Admiral Kato, the present Premier intends to resign. The signs do not, however, point that way, although the recent illness of the Premier has certainly made him wish to be back on his flagship rather than to have to bury himself behind the walls of a musty office.
The unofficial conversations that Viscount Goto, till recently Mayor of Tokio, has been having with Comrade A. A. Joffe with regard to the resumption of relations between Japan and the Soviet seem now to have reached the stage where unofficial parleys will have to cease and official ones begun, or the movement for closer relations between Tokio and Moscow be de-Initely called off. There seem to be indications that the two Powers will meet at a round-table soon and straws that show which way the wind is blowing may be discovered in the fact that Moscow has expressed willingness to forgo the head-tax of Yen 12 on each Japanese fisherman employed in the Siberian fisheries which are now largely controlled by Japanese capitalists, and the fact that Comrade Joffre ig stated to be intending making a lecture tour of Japan. If the latter report is true, it sheds a side-light on the alleged illness that Mr, Joffe is said to have been afflicted with, and makes one wonder when ther these diplomatic outbursts of illness, with the graphic touches of the Soviet diplomat having to travel on a stretcher, are part of an elaborate political window-dressing that Moscow and Tokio both approve of, the purposes of which the man in the street. cannot yet fathom. That Viscount Goto's visits ¢o the Foreign Office from the hotel in which Mr. Joffe is staying have become very frequent of late is significant, and the Japanese press regards this as an indication that matters are progressing very rapidly for a rap-brochment between Russia and Mr. Rodney Gikbert, the well-known correspondent of the North China Daily News" in Peking is accused by the Tokio Nichi Nichi" of sending his paper a message "which is a tissue of falsehood evidently spun with a view to prejudicing Japan in the eyes of the world" Mr. Gilbert is chal-longed to show conclusive evidence whereby Japan's unseen hand behind the Lincheng affair can be established, and is depicted as a "'jur-rialist of recognized anti-Japanese tendencies and, therefore, hig views carry little weight. His irresponsible remarks, however, might }*0- duce a bad effect on the minds of the Chinese who are naturally very fond of canards. They may furnish agitators with material for exploiting Sino-Japanese ill-feeling and it is important therefore that all canards circulated with the object of prejudicing Japan in the eyes of the world should be effectively dealt, with." oe The paper devotes considerable space to the Lincheng-outrage and ction prohibited without permission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.