Oct. 11
Mr. Neville Chamberlain's unreserved acceptance of President Franklin Roosevelt's offer of ce-operation in strengthening civilization's defences against the lawlessness now menacing international relationships is fan event of first-class importance. Mr. Chamberlain was not concerned solely witl China, nor was Mr. Roosevelt. The extreme delicacy of the sittiation in Spain, or rather the controversies arising from that situation is evidently impressed on the minds of the American President and British Prime Minister alike. Yet in his reference to the Far East Mr, Chamberlain was not less precise than Mr, Roosevelt. Readers of this journal will perhaps note that he emphasized the very point which has been strongly urged in these columns during the last few days. Deprecating the cruelty of modern warfare in its attacks on non-combatants, Mr. Chamberlain advised that natural indignation at those horrors should not obscure the real charge of disregard of solemn treaties. That is exactly why this journal, realizing the highly technical issues involved in aerial bombing, as exemplified by Prof. Shinobu' exposition of the jurist's view of the subject, ventured to express the fear lest the emotions of the boycott campaign should relegate to the background the far more important problem of the invasion of China and the challenge which it has offered to accepted international codes. There can be little doubt that the broad targets presented by the boycott agitation came as an unexpected Dlessing to Japanese apologists. They have fat once raised the ery of "atrocity-monger~ ing" against which balanced judgments have a justifiable prejudice; they have attempted to discount the accuracy of reports, with the clear suggestion that the whole turmoil is nothing more than specious propaganda. Cer-fain ingenuous foreigners, predisposed to such opinions by an inveterate bias against the Chinese, have conspicuously fallen for this device, In truth it is as unwise to give full vent to general charges against Japan's fir operations as it is to pretend that there is conventional limit to the use of the aero plane as an offensive weapon. Japan deserves fair play. The problem of peacefully solving this crisis {urns on the policy which has launched her naval, military and aerial expeditionary forees against the Government of China, Controversy over the manner in which those forces have conducted themselves distracts attention from the main issue. It stimulates the fervour of extreme idolaters at the shrine of Japanese militarism.
Mr, Chamberlain, as the mouthpiece of Great Britain, implicitly rebukes that obseurantism. He nails firmly to the mast those principles which it has become the fashion of modern superficiality to deride or ignore. Tt is not surprising to learn that the It Ambassador at Tokyo has burnt Signor Mussolini's boats. Despite the recent solemn
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.