The Japanese army keeps on expanding in one way or another. What for? That is a question many sober-minded Japanese themselves are asking. This forest of bayonets is not a toy; it eats up a tremendous amount of the wealth of a poor country like Japan; if it has to be kept up year after year, it must be ured. Where? Why?
Japan to-day is in a splendid me ternational position. 'There is no threat from anywhere. 'There is not even the shadow of a threat. China ig still in @ condition of flux. The Soviet Union and Japan are on the best of terms, on better terms than were Tsarist' Russia and Japan.
ea, England and France are fon the very best of terms with Japan. Japan is an original member of the League of Nations and one of the principal signatories and upholders of the Kellogg Pact. History has proved that the maintenance of hig forces brings about an uncon setous tendency to use them. Where is Japan going to use her big army, utterly out of proportion for defence needs? That is a question to which no answer has been as yet fortheoming.
The Hamaguchi Ministry has an excellent opportunity of affording the country much-needed relief by radically reducing the army establishment and it will have the people behind it in a solid phalanx.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.