Aug. 5
Lord Halifax, British Foreign Secretary, made an important speech in the House of Lords during the debate on foreign affairs on Thursday, and without a doubt some of Mis pronouncements. wvil).be. read. with the greatest interest. To a very large extent the nature of his address could have been anticipated without difficulty. His defence of the Craigie-Arita formula followed along the lines which Mr, Chamberlain himself adopted, and is a complete, and convincing reply to' those who criticized' that interesting document. The two most significant passages of the speech, however, referred to the possibility of the Government eventually deciding to denounce the Anglo-Japanese Trade Treaty of 1911, and the expression of hope that it may some day have the opportunity of using its good offices if and when they could be effectively employed. In this connection he asserted a belief, which is strongly held by many, that it was not beyond the power of men of goodwill to find a solution which would do justice to China, and take account of the interests of other Powers concerned in the Far East. With regard to the possibility of denouncing the Anglo-Japanese Treaty that is something which the Japanese would do well to bear in mind. It is true that the problem is rather more complicated than it, was in case of the recent deci ion of the United States on a like point, for whereas the latter had merely itself to con~ sult, any stich step taken by Whitehall would require conference with, and consideration of the interests of various component parts of the Empire, Thus the substantial trade between Canada and Japan, and that between the latter and Australia would have to be carefully considered, while the effect of denunciation upon Japan's trade with India would also have to be taken into account. Phe obstacles which these factors present are, however, not insurmountable, for it needs always to be remembered that to afford those dominions compensation for whatever damage they might suffer in the event of Japan's commerce with them being penalized as compared with the costs the resort to reprisals, for which the denunciation of the Treaty would be but the preliminary mandeuvre, must in any event be Pegarded as a most serious matter, for it ix powerful weapon when directed against such a highly industrialized country as Japan, which must continue to export, even in present modified proportions, if ils economic life is to survive. It may be assumed that they will not be resorted to except in the gravest circumstances, sich as for instance the breakdown of the Tokyo conversations and a continuance of Japan's present me transigeant attitude, Tt would be foolish in the absence of any oficial information as to what is actually happening in Tokyo to assume that those conversations are doomed to failure, for it is impossible to believe that there is no common ground upon which the negotiators could decide to agree, but the fact that, despite the reaching of an agreed formula, there has been no modification of the anti-British demonstrations in North China, if indeed they have not been increased, Justifles the belief that the civil government in Tokyo is quite unable to exercise that yntrol over its generals in the field, which normally to be expected. Thus, assuming agreement is finally reached, it would still remain to be seen whether the Japanese Government is in-a position to implement it, and if it should turn out that it was unable to do 0, then, obviously resort to other methods would have fo be had. 'The dang of the situation is, then, that' there are fact three parties to the negotiations, the British Government, the Japanese Govern-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.