Prospects for Betterment 5j Of Relations Seen Tokyo, Nov. M.
"Highly encouraging from the standpoint of Japanese-American relations is the announcement made yesterday by the Foreign Office, duplicate ing the announcement of the Japanese Embassy in Washington, of settlement of some of the cases in China involve ing Japanese damage to or occupation of American properties," says the "Japan Advertiser," American-owned and managed newspaper here.
It adds: "That they are cases of the kind that can be settled most easily does not detract from the importance of their settlement, nor does it matter greatly whether the compensation for damage is called consolation or indemnity. What matters is that progress is being made in negotiation of settlements and that the Japanese and American authorities in China ere gaining experience in reconciling differences and reaching agreements.
"If enough progress is made in disposing of cases of this kind," the "Japan Advertiser" continues, "an atmosphere will be created in which it may be possible to approach more difficult cases, those involving important principles, with some confidence that they can be solve Reuter.
"We must have autonomy, but to achieve this we must be fully prepared for war. But actually has Japan increased its military preparedness appreciable since the outbreak of the the conflict? If not, it is very strange.
"At the time of the outbreak of the European war Britain and: France were unprepared to all intents and purposes. That conflict is not yet six months old but we find that they have increased their output of arms and munitions more than ten times.
"We would do well to follow this example as the only way to settle the China incident is to concentrate on increased armaments. We must have military strength sufficient not only to crush the Chiang regime but to make it impossible for Powers assisting it to continue in their present attitude."—Domei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.