May 7.
Mr. Hachiro Arita's assurances of his Government's desire to. make stability of Eastern Asia Japan's} contribution to world peace might be respectfully commended to the attention of the Japanese military authorities on whose aims Reuter's Tientsin correspondent has thrown lurid light, If that information is correct it would seem that the, Japanese military, after deliberate~ ly preventing the Customs Service from exercising its normal functions, now point to the smuggling chaos thus produced as good and sufficient ground for setting up an independent Customs regime: Such scheme, so far from ensuring the safety of foreign loan services, would actually involve the breakdown of the Customs thus deprive ing China of the only effective expression of her national cohesion. On the integrity of the Customs Service depend the interests of the' "Whole fabric of foreign trade in China—shipping, commerce and banking, Citation of the so-called Simpson regime affords no proper] precedent, for, apart from the fact] that it involved no tariff changes, it} was of short duration and was} manifestly doomed to failure from the start. In the event it was not able to shake the safeguards for] the preservation of the integrity the service, In the light of the orgy of smuggling which has been proceeding in the North, the' pro~ posed creation of a separate Customs regime would shatter the organization on which China's credit is secured and without which foreign trade relations with China would become hopelessly complicated to the point of paralysis.
The Japanese Government hi been remarkably tolerant of the independent adventures of its imilitary representatives in China. It surely cannot welcome this further exercise of, an initiative which would cramp its own foreign policy and put out of account serious proposals for restoring Sino-Japanese understanding to a workable basis, In essence the suggested solution for the present difficulties In the North would entail, not merely another amputation of Chinese territory, but also the deliverance of a deadly blow at Chinese sovereignty. So foreign aggression In its most flagrant form would drive the Chinese Government to the brink of a collapse in which Japanese, as well as other foreign and Chinese interests, would be in dire peril. Aleady the smuggling scandal has apparently presented the world with the amaz-Ing spectacle of the milliary representatives of a first-class Power on the territory of a weaker nelghhour throwing the weight of their influence behind a rapidly developed organization for flouting the customs regulations to which that Power, with others, is pledged to give its support, Chinas revenues are thus outrageously raided. It is estimated that on occasions single day's admission of smuggled woods has involved a loss of as much as $600,000 in respect of revence which would have ordinarily been collected. Moreover the admission of goods free of duty has the effect of damaging and ultimately destroying legitimate trade by which Japanese, other foreign nationals and Chinese, are contributing} to the peaceful commercial development of this country. To meet this] situation factitiously created by the arbitrary exercise of Japanese] military force, it Is now suggested that a separate customs regime shall be set up: in plain language, the smugglers' paradise is to be Jegalized at the point of the bayonet.
Mr. Arita's request that the Chinese authorities should take a broad view of the situation in East) Asia, is made fantastical by the proposals attributed to his military colleagues in North China. What breadth of view is required to grasp the relentless subversion of, that the British Embassy has been Chinese authority and the progress ' artlessly relying on the claims of sive absorption of Chinese territory, such as must be implied in the alleged intentions of the'dominant 'Japanese power in the North? 'To the megalomaniac mind all things are possible, but Mr. Arita, like his predecessor and Prime Minister, is credited with a sound senso' of diplomatic possibilities and interna tional niceties. He cannot be salisfled that the present situation in the North redounds to the prestige of those responsible for it. His own anxiety to vindicate Japan's! readiness to ce-operate in the solution of the world's economic diMculties is creditable to his own reputation and that of the nation whose spokesman he is. Political Issues may be discussed between China and "Japan in the ordinary course of diplomatic business. is highly undesirable that their solution should be attempted by means of a direct frontal attack on the pivotal service of China's administration. The success of such an attack would conceivably entail the destruction of all means for presently ensuring the fulfilment of that ceonomie ce-operation on which Japanese statesmen have rightly Laid such stress in outlining their ideas of Sino-Japanese rela~ tions.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.