The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-10-13
POWERS MAKE
LAST FRANTIC
PEACE EFFORT
Japan Is Ready to HurI
Defiance at World and
Seize ManChuria.
WAR THREAT SOUNDED
China Will Fight and Seek
Aid of Soviet, Warning
Given ConfereeS.
BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMS
soripps Howard Foreign Editor

WASHINGTON, oct. 13.-Today,
at Washington and at Geneva, the
great powers began a last desperate
effort to head off a war involving
5OO,OOO,0O0 people and save the pacts
outlaWing war.
simultaneously, in the Far East,
Japan was pulling the most colossal
bluff ever risked by modern ma
ton. But the stakes are worth It.
If she wins, she stands eventually
TO triple the land area Of her en-
pire.
Manchuria, over which Japan has
fought two wars in the last thirty
FIVE years, has an area of 100000
square miles. The fertile portion
of eastern Mongolia adjoining has
another 100000 square miles.
With Korea, annexed fifteen years
ago. this would give her total area
of approximately 100000 square
miles. Japan proper had only 49,
600.
Obsession With Japan
Domination over this continental
backward of hers today is more
than a mere japanese policy. 1t
amounts to an obsession. With 1t,
her spokesman say, they can grow
and flourish. Without it the en-
pire is doomed for lack of room to
expand, and of vital foodstuffs and
raw materials.
Under no circumstances VIII
Nippon renounce this policy. She
regards it as she regards self
preservation. She may employ
juiutsu in her dealings with the
other powers and with China-the
japanese definition of Jujutsu be-
ing to appear to give way in order
to come back stronger-but no one
expects her definitely to yield.
Today, therefore, Japan grimly
faces the entire world, determined
to cling to what she has and to
get more before she has finished.
1t is this which provides the thrill
and the peril at Geneva and Wash
ingtolI this week.
China Is Helpless
Japan knows that China is vir-
tually helpless. China is confronted
by the most appalling disaster the
world has known, with a stricken
population equal to half that of the
United States and an area greater
than the state of New York under
water
Millions are starving as result
of flood and famine. Politically, she
is in chaos.
Nor is Japan particularly appre-
hensive over what America and
Europe might do. Europe is on the
edge of an abyss, financially and
politically. The specter of revolu-
lions stares some of the principal
powers in the face.
And America, crippled by the de-
preston, is certainly in no position
to talk war-any kind of war, let
alone war in China.
Japan, therefore, appears to have
picked her time with cunning. At
home popular sentiment seems to be
with the militarists, and the liberals
of the cabinet must confrom or be
thrown out of Office. Abroad, the
japanese believe, the powers will
confine themselves to protests.
Russia Is Threat
The one big threat is from the
direction of Russia. China has
warned that unless the league and
America can obtain for her a "just
settlement" she will have to resort
to war.
Also, she has intimated, if the
worst comes to the worst, she will
seek the aid of her Soviet neighbors.
And experience has shown that,
however reluctant she may be, 1t
is any old port in a storm.
But two can play this game as
we'll as one. 1t would be surpriS-
ing if Japan did not seek an under
standing with Russia, in the event
of war, and if she got it the result
for China probably would be the
loss of all her territory north the
Great Wall-that is to say, Mon
golia and Manchuria in their en-
tiretV