Oct. 12, Sir Francis Lindley speaks with authority on Anglo-Japanese rela tions. "His view that British policy jin the Far East should prudently proceed by friendly understanding with Japan has been consistently upheld by this Journal.. Suck cooperation is not one-sided. Response deservedly enjoys the confidence of British statesmen, is now report-fed to be expounding British opinion his own countrymen during his [brief holiday in Japan, and thus is usefully supplementing the admire lable labours of Sir Francis Lindley as a retired diplomatist in England, Yet there are always pitfalls for the distinguished expert when, after doffing his harness, he endeavours to dogmatize on a situation with Jwhich he was once intimately con-jeered. Pronouncements from the sheltered ease of retirement are not always helpful to the men still in the front line. The Central [Asia Society is an excellent organiz~ ation which enables a highly select Jand initiated public to sit at the feet of travellers, administrators, merchants and soldiers recently engaged in Asian adventure. It is used to divergence of view. It has actually experienced heated controversy but the family atmosphere prevails and no great harm is done, provided regard is paid to the fact that even a few months' absence from the East may make an expert astonishingly out of date, The oficial released from the responsibilities of office with all its chinery for precise information may lose touch and display a less firm grasp of events than his reputation leads his hearers to expect. Sir Francis Lindley, moreover, seems to have wandered' from his' formerly, familiar haunts to invade the country to which, in the course of hhis distinguished' career, he was never attached in any capacity. It is not surprising, therefore, that he fails to produce a clear-cut impression when discussing British rel ions with China, however impecjeable may have been his definition lot Anglo-Japanese friendship.
Nor is he happier in casting his Jeyes across the Atlantic to the nation whose policy he used to view from the other side of the Pacific.
discerns substantial suppo:* for! setting off closer Anglo-American friendship in vague hostility Japan. Neither in London. nor} Jat Washington is there any sign that such a policy would find favour. Great Britain's position is clear. As Member of the League of Nat/on: zhe is precluded from abandoning! the collective system—until it breaks down—for return to the discredited manifestations of power diplomacy. America is committed to friendship with Japan and responsible observers believe that, by developing Anglo-American relationship, the {task of consolidating an understand ing with Japan is facilitated and the solution of Pacific problems greatly helped. Those problem: Include consideration of China's place in the Far East and in Brit ish policy. Sir Francis Lindley, curiously uncertain in discussing [China, seems to imagine that, by some means or other. an attempt has been made to raise false hopes and to instigate on that ac-Jcount some rash decision in Nanking. This takes insufficient note of] the valuable efforts of Chinese and Japanese statesmen to compose their differences and to proceed on the basis of a true Sino-Japanese enftente. Rapprochement of that sort has been earnestly commended by this journal and by all who have lat heart the real interests of the Far East. It receives moreover re-
[spectable benediction from the rea Jities of the geographical, cultural, economic and political ties binding \China to Japan. It does not conflict with the modest view that Great Britain, as well as other western nations, has in China definite interests' which she is entitled to regard as of value to the general stability of the Far East and, in particular, to Sino-British frlendship.
The complexity of the situation Jcannot be denied. It is not due to jarly lack of prudence on Great Britain's part, although Sir Francis seems to imply that British prudlence falters. It is mainly due to the combination of a number of Jeconomic and political factors Jover which no one nation has control. Sir Francis must not [judged on the narrow basis of a cabled summary, but, with that reservation, it is permissible to observe shat he appears to advocate perseverance in a policy of negation jin China. This throws a vivid light fon his petulant and not too courte-Jous reference to a proposal evidentily outlined in the correspondence columns of "The Times" by the Bishop of Hongkong. If proof were [wanted of the need for a broader Joutlook on Far Eastern affairs by the men responsible to the British Government at Whitehall, Sir Francis' cavalier dismissal of the Bishop's suggestion should provide it, No-one would. imagine that the former Ambassador to Japan was swayed by petty notions of service amour propre. It would be more pertinent to surmise that in Tokyo his vision could not curately assess conditions on the other side of the China Sea. Nor could he apparently perceive the need for bringing the Island Colony into closer touch with Far Easter affairs and for divesting it of its irrelevant colonial self-sufficiency, If the term ridiculous were con= veniently applicable to consideration of British policy in China it might far more readily be transferred from the episcopal letter to examination of the administrative peculiarities of Hongkong, with its Jcurious conflict of departmental influences. Prudence in directing British relationship in the Far East is_to be warmly commended but prudence, as Sir Samuel Hoare has happily shown in another continent, must be allied with a firm faith in British capacity for cooperation in world affairs. There ig. no reason to believe that that capacity will be found wanting in ithe Far East,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.