The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-10-06
LEAGUE FACES
LIFE OR DEATH
IN JAPAN CRISIS
Lytton Report on Far East
Situation will Call for
Showdown.
BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS
Seripps-HoWard Foreign Editor

hcrippf-boWafo Foreign Edtt0r
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6.-The fire.
power Lytton report denying Japan
the fruits Of her conquest in Man
churia will come before the League
of Nations on Nov IA for its most
momentous decision.
The problem of world peace is
nearing a showdown. The League
OF Nations, the Kellogg pact, the
nine-power treaty, the four power
pact OF the Paciflc-in fact, the
whole laboriously created postwar
peace machinery-have reached the
crossroads.
At the crossroads. too, is Amer
lean foreign policy-the nature and
extent Of Americas future cooper
alton in the direction of interna-
tional peace and disarmament.
That the hour probably is the
gravest since the armistice is ad-
mitted at Washington and in the
capitals of Europe. The leagues
decision will determine which wav
the world will go for decades to
come. 1t will decide whether the
peace machinery will survive. or
whether the world will revert to
conditions worse than they were
prior to 1914, with every nation an
armed camp.
Case Against Japan
Specifically, the case against Nip
pom is this:
Thirteen years ago Japan. along
with the powers, signed the cove
nant Of the League of Nations. SOL
EMMY pledging herself not to re-
sort to armed aggression against her
neighbors.
Ten years ago Japan signed the
nine-power treaty, solemnly pledg-
ing herself not to interfere with
China's territorial or administrative
integrity, and not to take advan-
tage Of China's weakness.
-Four years ago Japan signed the
Kellogg pact, outlawing aggression,
solemnly pledging herself to refrain
from afar as an instrument of ma
tional policy.
Within the last thirteen months.
however, the Lytton report indi-
Gates, Japan has violated every one
Of these pledges. She has driven
China out of Manchuria at the point
of the bayonet.
She has set up new state"
which she has named "Manchukuo,"
openly and officially put it under
her armed protection, and defied the
rest Of the world to say her nay.
Showdown Faces League
Now comes the Lytton report.
The commission, appointed by the
league, investigated in Japan, China
and Manchuria, and tells us what
it found. After more than a year
of hedging, the league must now do
something. 1t must dispose of the
report-by far and away the grav-
est act of its entire existence.
Japan is the first . major power
thus to challenge the peace machin-
cry. If she is let off with white
washing, the whole thing admitted
ly collapses-becomes a pile of
Junk.
Three nations, largely, will decide
the fate of the peace pacts. Those
nations are the United States,
France and Great Britain.
Three courses are open to the
league:
First, it can sidetrack the Lytton
report, whitewash Japan, and
camouflage her Manchuian pro-
tectorate.
Second, with the United States, it
could bring additional moral pres
sure to bear on Japan, to make her
disgorge the fruits of conquest along
the lines laid down by the report.
Third. 1t could set up a boycott,
with United States concurrence, and
cut Japan off from the rest of the
world, automatically, economically,
and financially, until Japan chose to
make good her pledges.
If the league, under British and
French domination, chooses to fol-
low the first of the three courses,
its most ardent friends fear, it will
doom the peace machinery in its
entirety.
If the second or third course is
followed. a solid front of all the
great powers becomes imperative.
For should any one of the nations,
or even any likely combination of
them, dare to challenge Japan
alone, it would spell almost certain
war.
Next-the United States in Peril.
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