July 28.
The swiftness with which President roosevelt responded to the information of the Vichy-Japon.sareement, permitting. the atier fo establish naval, military, and air fasses in Indo-China, has been equalled, by the action of the Biitish andthe result, is that "Japanese. credits and assets in the United States and the British Empire, with the exception of Australia, have been frozen. In addition Great Britain, India and Burma have notified the Japanese Government of tie abrogation of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty Commerce "and. Navigation, and "the hide relations of 1094, declaring that the fs, relating to Japanse-Burmese
conclusion to. terminate the. treaties was Based "upon realization that" the object in View had not "been. achieved. "Japan as ephod by taking similar steps in retaliation and the result fs that there has been a very definite deterioration of the general situation fu the Pacific.
Whether it worsens depends entirely upon the future actions of Japan. The steps which have already been taken by Great Britain and the United. States, acting in parallel, should surely bring it home to the extremists, whose policy what was thought fo be a more moderate Cabinet is still fol~ Towing, that the two great democracies certainly mean business and that it their Interests in the Pacific are further menaced by Japanese action they will be defended even to the extent of going to war should that become. inevitable. What has been done up to the present is merely the commencement of the application of sanctions designed to strike a severe blow at the economic system of": Japan. Just how severe it will prove to be will only be shown by the passage of time, but it' is. certain that the present condition of Japan's economy, strained as it has been by four years struggle with Ching, is not such as to make restrictions such as have been placed upon Japanese trade any the easier to bear.
Tt is all very well for the Japanese to complain that" their, contemplated "new order" in Asia, or the "ce-prosperity sphere or whatever other fancy name it may be iven, is misunderstood by Great Britain and the United States. The fact is that it is modelled after Hitler's "new order" in Europe, and is just as predatory a scheme, Japan is out to secure exclusive control of the natural riches" of the southern Pacific and 10 make the whole of the western shores of. the Pacific. contributory "to. industrial machine, But neither Great Britain nor. the United States will have anything of these "new orders" which threaten their own interests. Their rights, honourably acquired during past decades, are just as valuable to them as Japan conceives they would be fo her could she seize them, The exercise of those rights has never been discriminatory as would be the case did Japan possess them, and the Japanese have had ust the same freedom of access. to the raw materials she covets as has had any other nation.
Naturally there must be some speculation as to what step Japan will take next. In the circumstances one man's guess is as good a5 another's but the possibility of Japan "protecting" Thailand to such an extent that she would be able to cut the Burma road, and. thus make further progress towards liquidating the "China Incident" cannot. al= together be ignored. That wolfd bring about avdirect clash with the British, and recent dispositions which have been made in Burma suggest that that is a contingency which the British authorities have constantly borne in
sanctions will cause the Japanese to. with-1 i unlikely that the appiation of Graw from Indo-China, "They may, however, serve as a warning to the Japanese that neither Britain nor the United States are out ie that in any way helps to asco the hand of the moderate elements is depen that in any way helps to strengthen
actual war may still be averted, but, if that does not prove to be the case,' the respon. sibility will be wholly Japanese. The last thing that is wanted in this part of the world war, but Great Britain and the United States will not hesitate to secept any. chal Tenge which may be thrown out.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.