It is by nó means uninteresting that the Japanese newspapers should be indulging in a storm of criticism concerning the invocation of the escalator clause of the London Naval Treaty by parties to that document, notably Great Britain, and the United States,. It Will all mem are created equal, that they are remembered that suspicions arose that Japan endowed by their Creator with certain un-was building war vessels beyond the category Alienable rights, that among these are Life, established by the Treaty. Those suspicions were Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, That strong enough to cause Great Britain and the to: secure these rights, Governments are in-United States to make inquiries in Tokyo as to stituted amongst Men, deriving their just what Japan Was doing, and the government, of powers from the consent of the gov: that country, refused fo disclose any informatión, That whenever any form of Government Governments do nót as a rule make such incomes destructive of these ends it is the Right quiries in the hope of obtaining. information of the People to alter or abolish it and but rather to indicate the possession of unofficial institute. new Government, laying its founda-information upon which they ask for confirmations on such principles and organizing its tion or denial The inquiries meant in effect powers in such form as to them shall seem that'Great Britain and the United States were most likely to effect their Safety and Hap-in possession of information showing that the piness. limits of the London Naval Treaty were being exceeded by the Japanese Government, The latter To many Americans those words are as could either affirm or deny it, or refuse to familiar as those of some prayers and creeds give any information though it was bound to of the Christian Church; to others they may do none of these. Of the three alternatives the not be so, for they are taken from early first and third would be of a positive nature, passages in the Declaration of Independénice, and.in the refusal to give any information was unanimously adopted on July 4, 1776 by. the seen the admission of the truth of what they "Representatives of the United States of had been told. It is all very well for the Avnerica in General Congress assembled."
Japanese Press to indulge in a big show of indignation over the matter, but there' is no They are portion of that instrument by which merit behind it. If the inquiries made at Tokyo those States formally denounced their con-rely. based on rumours, it was easy for nection with Britain, an instrument which was Japanese Government to deny them. That the record of the birth of a new natión. They would have been the simplest course. and if are even more, for they represent a com-the denial had been found to be-consonanf: with plete statement of the principles of democracy. the facts a. new naval race would not have been started. Li the additional building), which and the emphatic enunciation of the rights of may become necéssaty from the Japanese point all peoples, even those unfortunate enough of view, bears heavily upon the finan of, the to make up what are now known as minoru les. country, the government has only. itself. te What manner of men were they who signed blame, but, as it appears to be becoming quite a this fateful document? Forty-eight were genius for the accumulation of unnecessary native born Americans, eight were British burdens,..the additional expenditure upon tue navy will probably be regarded as one of those born. There were lawyers—the largest pro-little things which just have to happen. pottion—merchants, farmers, physicians, a printer, for so Benjamin Franklin was described, a surveyor, a general, a shoemaker, A Strange Story a minister, a sailor and @ statesman. They A. correspondent. today. casts doubts upon the and their families were proscribed as traitors truth of the story of the escape of General to the British Government and rewards of Lushkoff from Siberia into Manchoukuo as told £500 were offered for their apprehension. by Domei. There is much io be said for his Amthority dies hard even in the face of such contention that the GPU might have at times determined men, and they, or at least many arranged for the introduction, of agents into certain countries in a manner calculated to obtain for of them, having placed their signs manual them the greatest sympathetic consideration. If to so imposing an instrument lived long that has been the idea with regard to Geners! enough to realize that when they did so they Lushkoff the scheme is likely to prove a failure, had conferred their approval on one of the for it has made the General a conspicuous figure most historic documents of the world. They in the eyes of the Japanese, and, cónsequentiy, one who will be under a close watch sll the had defined democracy as it had never been before, and set down in writing the rights of time he is in their hands. There are certain improbable. features about the story which every human being on the globe. They were require further elucidation. Supposing his wife not new ideas, for they had been harboured did manage(to escape across the Polish border in the minds of many thinkers before them, and did send the telegram about kisses which but it was a crystallization of principles in a informed him of the success of her manceuvre, political document as important in the history how does it come that the telegram was eyer delivered to the suspected General? The GPU, ofthe. Anglo-Saxon race as that signed by if the General's story is correct, must have had. King John at Runymede. bim under observation for some. time past, and The genesis of things is always interesting. the arrival of so mysterious a telegram would' On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, pursuant most certainly have put them, on their guard, to a resolution of the Virginia House of making it all the more difficult to believe that Burgesses, adopted on May 15 of that year, he did escape in the way he did. Oi the other introduced into the Continental Congress a hand unless his wife had succeeded in getting out of the country the Soviet would have one resolution which declared "That these United of those hostages which have been availed of in Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free the past to bring errant sons back to the father-and independent states, that they are absolved land for punishment of offences fancied or real from all allegiance to the British Crown, and If it is a genuine escape then; the GPU were not that all political connection between them and only outwitted but did not know of the wife's the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, enlargement until the husband himself had got free, which seems to indicate that the authorities totally dissolved." John Adams seconded the in Moscow may find it necessary to indulge in a resolution, which was laid aside for a time, purge of the department. Obviously someone but during the month a committee was aphas blundered and should be punished for it. pointed to consider the Declaration, and the It is, perhaps, too early to refuse believe in the instrument drawn up by Jefferson and slightly story General Lushkoff tells, but, if it is true, amended by Adams and Franklin was pre-and he and his wife have in fact escaped, an sented to Congress on June 28. An entry in impending doom, then they are both to be congratulated upon their astonishing luck. the Journal of the Continental Congress for July 4 reads:—"Agreeable to the order of the day, the Congress resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole to take into their further
NATURE NOTES
consideration the Declaration. The President If Y were asked what is the most beautiful resumed the Chair. Mr. Harrison (Chairman sight in Nature, I think I would say the emerg-of the Committee of, the Whole) reported that ing of the imago, or perfect insect, of the cicada from the larva, or grub. This is something that the Committee of the Whole Congress had may be observed here in Shanghai in any agreed to the Declaration which he delivered garden in which are a few fair sized trees from in. The Declaration being read was agreed about 8 o'clock in the evening fill midnight to." Brief words for so momentous an octhroughout the months of July and August: To casion, but they committed the colonies to see it at its best one must search the trunks of the great gamble, and with them those who the trees with an electric torch till one finds a cicada grub which has just emerged from the were to sign the Declaration, for the fortunes ground end has crawled up a tree trunk, finally of war had not then been decided. It was to coming to rest at a convenient height for drag on for seven years more, and if the observation. An ugly little fellow this, with Colohies had lost the struggle, all those who hunched back and crooked clawed legs, dirty had voted for the declaration, as well as those yellowish in colour and often smeared with mud—who had actually signed it, would, if caught, hardly worth bothering about, it would seem. have had to pay the penalty of their treason But watch it. Suddenly a longitudinal slit will appear in the thorax of the little creature, io the British Crown. But cóurage and faith revealing pale green skin underneath the yellow in the righteousness of their cause rein-outer integument. Imperceptibly the slit widens forged these, men im their determination to and one realizes that a living pulsating pale uphold the Anglo-Saxon ideas of liberty and green form is somehow pushing its way out fight against a monarchy so ill-advised as to through the opening. Without being able to say. ignore the very warnings which were given how it happened, one presently perceives that it by many of its own leading statesmen... It the living thing within the brittle shell has must always be borne in mind that the War succeeded in getting its head and thorax clear. Two pearl-like eyes glisten in the light of the of Independence was Anglo-Saxon in its in-torch as the body of the insect bends further spiration: the men who fought it were inspired and further backwards, till one wonders why it with exactly those same ideals which does not overbalance and fall to the ground. animated the English in their constitutional Then the slender legs, which have been with-st throughout all the previous centuries, drawn in some miraculous way from the case Of the larva's crooked misshapen appendages, and had that fact been more clearly realized begin waving in various directions as they feel it is. possible that much of the early bitterness for something to which to hang. Soon first one would never have been demonstrated. The another, reaching fi rebels were fighting an old battle on a new of the tree, on to whi
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.