At the risk of rousing resentment among many readers, it must in honesty be recorded that Japan and the Japanese people have shown an admirable and restraint up to the moment, Certai ly it Is a selt-restraint such not been In evidence for many years past when conflict of any type arose with China, If the present situation had come into existence a few years ago, the Japanese Army would long ago have been at the throat of the Chinese forces. 'That it is not to-day' is interesting, significant and capable of explanation and analysis.
There are several motives entering into Japan's reluctance to take the field of battle now that what seems, from the Japanese viewpoint, a golden opportunity Is offered, and the chief of these is that Japan desires no war of any sort, oficial or unomelal, with China or with any ether Power, at the present time. If necessary, Japan will fight, and how good an accounting it will give of self can best be surmised by a lance at previous wars In which this Empire has Ween engaged. But the outstanding fact is that Japan does not want to go to war if it can be honourably avolded—but only hon curably avoided—and If public opition can' be controlled.
Tt was emphasized in my last letter, written a week before the first hostilities near Peiping, that the pivotal principle round which all Sapanese policy was designed to re-Volve for some years to come was that of placing the nation on a "semi-wartime basis." This. is capable of no other interpretation than that the Government and the defence services do not consider the motion to be on such a basis to-day. Else why this five-year drive that will Strain every nerve to achieve such a status?
Menace of Soviet Russia Japan feels that It fs quite capable! of meeting and drastically defeating! China in battle, but there are other! impelling reasons why this country wishes to perfect its armaments, its economic and political structure' before taking the field against any Power. Not the least of these is the ever-present menace of Soviet Russia a conceived by Japan. Still another is the feeling existing in some circles: here, principally among Army men and those of the extreme Right wing school of thought, that modern Japan has strayed from the ethics and principles upon which the Empire! was founded, and that the present generation must be brought back' thereto, Additional but lesser reasons may be advanced, but ghe central fact, that Japan prefers not to Mght this time and is willing to go to some lengths to avoid so doing, remains unchallengeable. If this were not the ease, an undeclared Sino-Japanese war would have been under way at the first violation of the truce con-eluded on July 11 between the North China Garrison and the 29th Route Army.
The wiser heads in Japan, those who ordinarily direct national policy, feel that the nation is somewhat over-expanded at the moment and that a period of peace and quiet, both internal and abroad, is assentist for consolidation and upbuilding. During] this period Japan is no more anxious to engage in aggressive action than was the Soviet Union when it embarked upon its frst five-year plan.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.