Oct, Hopes that the Counci! of the: League of Nations would be able. to persuade Japan to fulfil the obligations outlined in the draft} resolution presented on Thursday, have been disappointed. The Council has formally endorsed that resolution by a majority of thirteen votes to one. 'This action is authorised by, article 15 (4) of the Pact which' runs:
If the dispute. is not thus settled, the Council either unanimously or by a majority vote shall make and publish a report, containing n statement of the! facts of the dispute and the recommendations which are deemed jast'and proper in regard there-
Article 5 (1), on which the Japanese delegate relied for his contention that the decision' must be unanimous, is clearly governed by this provision and has been so treated by the Council. Article 5 (1) says:
Except where otherwise expressly' provided in this Covenant oF by' the terms of the present Treaty, decisions at any meetin of the Assembly of of the Coune hall require the agreement of all the Members of the League represented at the meeting.
The Council hopes that the moral fect of its decision will not be lost. on Japan. It should enable the Japanese Government, to use the time now available before the next meeting of the Council, on November 16, in educating public opinion on the implications of continued opposition to the considered view of all the nations represented on the Council. The difficultjes before that Government are great. They have to perform! the always invidious task of upholding the practical benefit of observing basic principlee of international justice as against that of vindicating immediately' patent considerations of national grievance, Baron Shidehara has the statesmanship to perceive the importance of _performing this task. The question remains whether he will be able to command the power to give effect to that perception, For it must be hard for sorely. tried Japan to recognize that) to the issue before the Council her undoubted wrongs are) irrelevant. Now, by the decision at Geneva, she is brought face to face with the choice between maintaining her national prestige or that of her militarists. In the present eircumstances no choice could be more. embarrassing. The desperate attempt to divert the Council's attention to the validity of the 1915 Treaty was natural. It failed as soon as Lord" Cecil, subsequently supported by 'M. Briand, pointed out that the two words, "funda-_ mental principles," included in the Japanese alternative to the Council'? resolution, could not be accepted without explanation. Nor does it seem to have been sufficiently understood by Japan that, once she agreed to the solution proposed by the Council, the way would be clear for an authoritative examination of the grievances by the existence of which she sought ex post facto to justify the action of her troops in Manchuria, She has again emphatically' declared that she intends to maintain pacific relations with Chin she has reaffirmed her recog tion of China's sovereignty: in Manchuria, Yet, apparently, she does not admit that the action now being taken by her troops in China is utterly inconsistent with those protestations, unless she agrees to fellow the prescription drawn up by the League. She has put her representative at Geneva in a most unhappy position because, while instructing him on certain very restricted lines, vho has permitted her spokesmen their own country to proceed far beyond the limits of his brief. Indeed, until almost at the eleventh hour, the Council was not made officially aware of the nature of the "fundamental principles" on which the discussions have, for the time being, foundered. Sooner or later the Japanese Government must see the force of the damaging revelations made by the irregularity of procedure which has put the cart before the horse On September Foreign Office at Tokyo stunned" by the news of the events of September 18 at] Mukden. Later General Honjo's declaration that Marshal Chang Heueh-liang's Government would not be recognised was repudiate ed by Baron Shidehara's department. This did not prevent the Japanese military authorities from collecting and sending to Dairen, a few days afterwards, large number of eases containing the Marshal's personal effects. With the soldiers on the spot so evidently determined to act ahead of their instructions, it is impossible to accept at their face value the reports which have suggested the impossibility of withdrawing from posts outside the railway zone.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.