To the Editor of the "Norti-Cuia Dany News Sm—In view of the threatening stand which Japan has assumed! toward the present international] naval conference, it is worth noting what Vice-Admiral Hajime Matsushita of the Japanese Naval General Staff has to say in the current issue of Contemporary Japan on. "The Logie of Our Naval Claims." He Buts all the argument in a nutsheit thus:
"It will be evident from the above definition of "needs (for economic! Supremacy) and purposes (of mastery in' Bast Asia). that our navy must Necessarily be such "ay to. exercise Complete command of the sea of the Orient all. elreumstances. The the spirit of the dogma still runs sometimes even predominantly amens the American people. Thus their Policy is liable to be renders Inconsistent, sometimes perhaps jan unnoticeable extent, but as often to such on incorrigible degree that they appear quite out of place in world polities. For instance, the League of Nations was firs, sugges!- ed by, and brought into existence under the auspices of the United States. And yet they are kept, and will be, aloof from their Utopian! organization. This inconsistency' of their action' is traceable to the Uingerings of the declaration made by President Monroe over a hundred years ago. Well then, why could not they allow us a single claim of the rome nature? What impudence must it be of them if, they must needs have a navy 53° big: enable them to keep others unde: their power on the other side the globe? Let them mind their owa business!
Shanghai, Dec. 18.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.