"The Foreign Secretary, Mr. Anthony Eden, revealed during last week that the British Government was disturbed over the discrepancy between the peaceful declarations of the Japanese Government and the bellicose "statements of the Japanese press. He remarked that these latter bore a resemblance {to the charges and accusations which used to precede aggressions by the Nazis in and expressed concern on that account. "Though Mr. Eden's statement was clear enough both in what he actually said and in what he implied, there has been no improvement in the tone of the Japanese comments apd news stories concerning Thailand and Indo-China. If anything, the accusations against Britain and the United States have become more extravagant than before. To many foreigners, not only Anglo-Saxons, they are difficult to understand o to strange mixture of slogans with which they are interlarded—slogans such as "immutable policy," "life lines," "encirclement," the "new order in East Asia," and the "East Asia co-ES sphere." There have also been ferences to the geographical responsibility of Japan for the economic development of her neighbours in the Far East and for the preservation of their sovereignty which have confused the issue oe Further. Tt seems strange to some people that the Japanes Dress should claim geographical responsibilities for-territories two thousand or more miles away, and not for territories like the Soviet Maritime which are just next door. While it may be that difficulties in translation account for part of the obscurity sing used by the Tokyo press. something so Nazi about graphical responsibilities X B cou dri 2 counts Owing to the control of thought and of
the Japanese Government cannot ther shrug off the responsibility for the views and distortions of fact claim that if has nothing io opinions €x definitely to be taken into account nations in the calculation of their policies. In circumstances like this a makes itself look ridiculous is making its government also look—which is a much more serious matter.
Some of the charges which have been made against "foxy Britain," as one newspaper describes the Empire, have been so fantastic that if they had been any made in tion as a good joke. Their second reaction might be to rank it alongside that: other strange perception which sees an intention of the United States to "seize" Vladivostok. Here is another example, reported by the Domei news agency:
The* outspoken "Kokumin" declared that British and United States gestures toward Thailand were designed to kill at least four birds with a single stone, 1. By stemming Japan's southward advance at the "demonstration io the Soviet Union Thi ese border. that British and American promises will not be mere words.
3. An attempt to save the face of the so-alliance.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.