"There is nothing in the pact to increase her capacity or to enable her to intensify her military effort. japan has plunged upon a course fraught with incalculable consequences to herself for advantages which, even in the shortest of views, appear negligible.
"Like Germany in Europe, Japan could, if she had chosen a path of. peaceful cooperation and partnership, have played a predominant and respected role in the economic development of China. Like Germany, Japan lacked necessary self-confidence and self-restraint for this task, and plunge ed recklessly down the path of ruthlessness and domination.
"Many attempts made by both Great Britain and the United States to retrieve past errors and reach a sympathetic understanding of Japanese needs were treated ae signs of weakness and used as a starting point for fresh aggression."
After stating that Japan's progress in the last three years has been accompanied by deliberate provocation towards the Western Powers, "The Times" adds: "The pact now con-eluded with the Axis marks a further step, and almost the last step, on this path. It must now be regretfully admitted that caution, charicteristic of Japanese foreign policy in the past, has been abandoned.
"The country where the pact has been received- with the most unreserved satisfaction is China, whose far-seeing rulers believe that Japan, by deliberately courting the hostility of Great Britain, the British Dominions and the United States, has fa ly mortgaged her future and involved self in the consequences of Ger-coming defeat."—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.