Oct, 30.
In March, 1935, Japan's notice of withdrawal' from the League of Nations of which she is an original member, expires. Piquantly it is now disclosed that the Japanese Government is anxious to ascertain how it can continue to participate in the League's technical, social and humanitarian activities.
There is precedent, of course, in the association which the United States of America, a non-member, preserves and has developed. with Geneva. And Japan has long! made it clear that, for various Teasons, she expects to retain the mandates held by her under the League's auspices, even when her full membership has lapsed, Without discussing the reasons which! induced Japan to give notice of withdrawal, it is possible to regret that decision and, indeed, to regard it as unnecessary. The essence of that collective system which the League is set up to work, lies in the freedom of members hold and express divergent views. Japan felt aggrieved that the out come of the Commission of Inquiry for which she herself moved in 1931 was, in important. respects, adverse to her own judgment of the issues involved. Many people have felt that she would have been far better advised to have remained in the League in justice to her! own strongly-hold views. Whether the League handled the Manchurian problem with appropriate] skill is a matter of opinion, Much! of the criticism levelled against iti has been self-contradictory. Too little regard has been paid to the basic fact that the League is what its members make it. So Japan's decision to withdraw is all the! more regretted. One point may validly be made in Japan's favour. Tnexperience and excessive zeal in! the League's bureaucracy led to the display of undue partisanship by League officials unconnected with the Lytton Commission. was. not sufficiently realized that, while technical advice could quite properly be offered to China, more care should have been taken to ensure that Japan's status as equal claimant to the League's political and judicial services was! safeguarded.
The parting from Genev put Japan, by her own action, apparent disadvantage. She exposed to the difficulty of refuting the view that the absent are always wrong. Unwittingly, perhaps, she stirred up inher own mind suspicions of the _activities of a body with which she was in process of dissolving Dartnership. It is generally agreed that her break with the League has severely shaken that organization. It may directly have encouraged other defections and has engendered a loss of faith in what, at one time, was greeted with high hopes. That the decline the League's prestige has aclcentuated the world's fear of the recrudescence of war is significant of the fundamental soundness of the principles which actuated the founders of that great international. fellowship. The talk of alliances and pacts has revived the spectras of the pre-war struggle for arma-' ment supremacy. They surely Point clearly to the same disastrous climax. Even.now Japan herself is engaged in' discussions which have about them an ominously) familiar ting. Fortunately the economic and psychological state of mankind is still disposed toward the desperate maintenance of peace The horrors of the cataclysm have not yet spent their influence, although a new generation to which they are but a second-hand nightmare is rapidly coming to the fore. Faced with the symptoms which any competent historian can detect, the minds of responsible men and women tun. steadfastly to the need for return to the League.
For although Japan and Germany alone have definitely withdrawn—eaving out of account America' Prenatal defection—other members are losing their enthusiasm and are! apparently cultivating the withdrawal state of mind, This has inspired a strong effort to ralty renewed support for the collective] system. Signor Mussolini's declaration in favour of reform of the!
League was an early indication of that attitude. The entry of Soviet Russia into the League has been received with mixed feelings, It has apparently given the League needed strength, That strength will be dangerously illusory it Russia's intention can be assessed on no higher basis than a desire to use the League in diplomatic manguvre against Japan. The League would then be, not an instrument of peacemaking; but a tool in the hands of the peacebreaker. Japan's desire to keep her line of approach to Geneva intact is, therefore, to be welcomed, Her resumption of full membership would remove much reproach from Russia's acceptance of th: League's invitation. There is no ground for supposing that the mere continuance of technical and social membership implies a readiness to cancel the notice of withdrawal Yet the maintenance of contact with Geneva may, if properly and sympathetically treated by Japan's colleagues, give her heart to attempt a realignment with the workers for world-peace. Thy friends of Japan are more numerous than she sometimes is disposed to believe. They only regret that the condition which she, rightly or wrongly, has imposed on herself makes it difficult for their friendship to find its fullest expression, A generous gesture on her part would probably be met more than halfway by one equally generous from Geneva, Her improved rela~ tions with China prompt the sug~ gestion that the stubborn prejudices of two years ago can be shelved. The process, if leading by the road back to the League, may conceivably eliminate some of the anxieties which Japan, in existing cireum~ stances, is likely to find oppressive.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.