The swiftness with which President Roosevelt responded to the information of the Vichy-Japan agreement, permitting the latter to establish naval, military, and air bases in Indo-China, has been equalled by the action of the British and the 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 the abrogation of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation and the agreements relating to Japanese-Burmese irade relations of 1934, declaring that the conclusion to terminate the. treaties was based upon realization that the object in view had not been achieved. Japan has replied by taking similar steps in retaliation and the result is that there has been a very definite deterioration of the general situation in 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 to be a more moderate Cabinet is still following, that the two great democracies certainly mean business and that if 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 China, is not such as to make restrictions such as have been placed upon Japanese trade any the easier to bear.
It 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 given, is misunderstood by Great Britain and the United States, The fact is that it is modelled after Hitlers "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 to 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 to 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 just the same freedom of access to the raw materials she covets as has had any other Naturally there must be some' speculation tis to what step Japan will take next. In the circumstances one man's guess is as good as another's but the possibility of Japan "protecting" Thailand to such an extent that She would be able to cut the Burma road, ahd thus make further progress towards liquidating the "China Incident" cannot altogether be ignored. That would bring about 4 direct 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 tind. It is unlikely that the application of Sanctions will cause the Japanese to withdraw from Indo-China, They may, however, Serve as a warning to the Japanese that neither Britain nor the United States are prepared to indulge in any more appeasement. If that in any' way helps to strengthen the hand of the moderate elements in Japan actual war may still be averted, but, if that does not prove to be the case, the responsibility will be wholly Japanese. The last thing that is wanted in this part of the world is war, but Great Britain and the United States will not hesitate to accept any challenge which may be thrown out.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.