WHAT JAPAN THINKS OF SINGAPORE FROM A JAPANESE CORRESPONDENT.
rOur Japanese correspondent is as discreet about Japanese official views as we should have expected. Nevertheless, he makes it plain enough that the Japanese, both official and unofficial, do not at all like the Singapore scheme. There are statements in his article which we might easily dispute. but our object is simply to lay before our readers what Japan is thinking and saying. Although the British Government could not " officially refute " the comments of Japanese newspapers, enough has been said in Parliament here to show that no sane person dreams of challenging Japan. We all regard Japan with friendliness and respect, as we have very good reason to do, for she was a scrupulously loyal Ally. The point, however, is not what Japan is justified in thinking but what, un- justifiably or not, she does think. In the circumstances we appeal to the Government once more very carefully to reconsider the Singapore scheme. Is it worth while to raise up enmity when we have so much on our hands ? Is peace and Imperial safety most likely to be obtained in the way proposed ?—En. Spectator.] WHEN I accompanied Lord Northcliffe as far as Peking via Korea and Mukden in 1921, I formed sonic opinions which were very much like those now held in official and popular circles in Japan about the enlarged Singapore naval base. The official and popular opinions may appear to be contradictory—the official ones are more or less suppressed and the popular ones are most freely expressed—but both are ultimately traceable 63 a desire to be on good terms with the United States.
Lord Northcliffe, knowing that I was somehow unofficially connected with the Foreign Office at Tokyo, talked to me with the obvious hope that his views about the desirability of terminating the Anglo-Japanese Alliance might reach official ears. That affiance, he said to me in substance, put a severe strain on Great Britain's relations with America. Moreover, in his opinion it had injured Britain's position in the Far East during the Great War as it had enabled Japan to become mistress of the situation there. He did not say or even hint that some Western Powers had lent troops to the Chinese Republic and tried to induce China to join the Allied cause against Japan's wishes. Nor did he care to admit the truth of the open secret that certain European Powers had offered to support Japanese claims when the time came to dispose of German possessions and interests in China and in the South Seas on condition that the Japanese Navy should extend its operations to the Mediterranean. Lord Northcliffe, however, was at the time too overworked and too nervously excited to be calm or cogent in his reasoning.
Official reticence in Japan is carried so far that the official world does not even try to inspire the pro-Govern- ment newspapers on delicate diplomatic questions. Many newspapers write defiantly on the _strength of information obtained from independent, often anti- Government, sources as though they knew better than the responsible people. The official elements, neverthe- less, do not deny what the popular Press 'assts, namely, that the Singapore proposal is against the spirit of the Washington Convention ; that it aims unequivocally at Japan as the prospective enemy, and that it brings the Philippines within striking distance. Thus, they seem to fasten on Britain the grave responsibility of provoking the next disastrous war.
The London Government has not officially refuted the. Japanese Press contention that its policy is directed against Japan. None the less the Tokyo Government Imows, just as clearly as the London Government knows it, that Britain is faced with the serious dilemma of keeping the British Empire intact by whatever policy serves that purpose or of letting Australia and Canada form a triple anti-Asiatic Immigration League with the. United States. The United States, it must be remem- bered, has the most powerful navy in the Pacific. Japanese responsible elements also fully understand Great Britain's extremely delicate relations with America in the re-establishment of an equilibrium of world politics. They remember, too, that many German-trained army and University men in Japan openly demonstrated their sympathy with the Teutons in the Great War. British officials asked our FOreign Office to put an end to such a breach of faith, but our Government could not do so any more than the British Govern- ment itself could interfere with freedom of speech and thought.
The London authorities must have discovered of their own accord that the object of China's diplomacy in the Great War was to drive Japanese influence out of her country with the support of Great Britain and America and, having succeeded in that, to drive out British influence and that of all other European Powers. - In that last stage she would have counted upon the moral support of disinterested America.
The responsible elements in Japan .could not but sympathize at heart with popular indignation when our British Ally was the chief means of depriving no small, part of Asia of its independence and contrived that in the League of Nations no Power could be stronger than the British Empire. As a matter of fact it was thus and thus alone that the whole world could be saved, at least for the time being, from a much worse state of things— the attempt by all other ambitious Powers to get rid of British supremacy. This fact was really appreciated by the Tokyo Government. If the Tokyo .Government, however, had boldly said what it thought about the inevitability of events it would have been mobbed.
Popular opinion in Japan takes the line that as Great Britain tries to please America by hook or by crook for her own reasons, we of Japan must follow a similar policy also for our own reasons. The non-official elements are honestly opposed to the idea that Japan must maintain friendly relations with our twenty-years Ally and continue to model herself on British methods with regard to the relation of the Throne to the people, Parliament, and all the political adaptations which have been seen in England since the War. They seem to take it for granted that any weakening of British influence would be a gain alike to America and Japan. Those of them who have German inclinations are ready to justify their anti- British breach of faith during the Great War in the high- sounding name of " Asia for Asiatics " under Japanese leadership.
Our chauvinists ignore the obvious fact that for many years to come the establishment of more reasonablq relations and of mutual confidence between different nationalities cannot be achieved without a vast outlay of accumulated capital. In one matter the silent and the clamorous classes in Japan agree ; both wish that America would join and play a leading part in the League of Nations. That would probably bring about what we should all like to see—a reduction of the authority of the surviving great capitalist Powers in Europe.
Let me say one word in conclusion. It must not be forgotten that the Japanese people are always influenced by home politics when they are opposing or supporting the Government's foreign policy.
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