Evening star., 1933-03-05

n IN respect to the japanese
wv action in Manchuria will be
variously interpreted and on
the whole the interpretations
will divide themselves into liberal and
realistic views The liberals of the world
will say that the League, after desperate
and continued effort, has succeed
ed in arriving at Judgment which rep
resents the public opinion of the world
and amounts to the mobilization of the
moral forces of the world. They will
say this is an achievement of incal-
Culable Importance.
BY contrast, the realists everywhere
will say that the League has failed in
the first real and significant test of its
power They will say that it has failed
because it has been unable, in the first
place, to prevent war; in the second
place, to arrest war in progress, and
in the third place, to persuade other
countries to go beyond the limits of
publicly expressed and concerted ver-
dict of diSapproval.
Now in practice what has the Man
churian affair demonstrated in terms of
contemporary conditions? First of all,
it has proven to the satisfaction of the
Poles, the CzechS, the Bulgarians, the
HungarianS, the Rumanians-and all
other nations which, with justice, fear
aggression-that they cannot hope for
any physical protection from the
League. If the Germans go to Brom-
berg. the Hungarians to Kassa or the
Czechs to Budapest, the Yugoslavs to
Sofia or the SovietS to BeSSarabia. the
maximum of League activity must, in
the light of the Manchurian episode,
consist of a year-long debate, with the
aggressor followed by verdict of guilty.
unaccompanied by any form of effective
punishment
Collective Method Fails.
Obviously. for any nation which fears
invasion this will not do. 1t will not
serve to persuade the people of exposed
and menaced countries to reduce their
ornaments. to refrain from making mil
itary alliances or to trust their security
In the hands of League which, even
If it be the exponent of the moral judg-
nlent Of mankind, cannot accompany its
words with any deeds. What is vaguely
described as the collective method of
preventing war has broken down in this
great initial test.
Concomitantly, the inability of the
League to clothe its words with force
must have its bearing upon the opinions
OF the elements of every nation which
urge violent action abroad. The Nazis
VI 1AAtACl, wiz 4OI 4Oi(iDlC 1CblSlOll
of the frontiers of the treaty of Ver-
sailles, perceive at once that their op-
pos;te numbers, the japanese National
istS have been able to carry the war
far into Asia without any form of hin
drance from the League.
Here, then. at the outset is the bank
ruptcy of the first assumption on which
the League was originally based-the
assumption that as result of the
World War there was a new spirit in
tho world and that, as a result of this
spirit, it would be possible to deal with
international differences in new way
Obviously. there is nothing new about
the spirit which today dominates
Japan. On the contrary, it is the iden-
tical spirit which dominated all the
lmperialistic countries in the last CEN
tury.
The Japanese have gone about doing
an old familiar thing in new way.
But there was yet another assumption
in the League idea. And that was
that, even if one nation should, be-
cause of reasons peculiar to itself. re-
vert to the methods and mentality of a
pre-war age, the rest of the world
would be there to restrain, to admonish
and, if necessary, to coerce. But it is
clear that the British, French and
American peoples who would have to
do the coercing, fatty reject the task.
They are willing to agree that what
Japan is doing is wrong and to publish
their opinion, but that is the limit.
Want Fight for Peace.
What does this mean? Just what
Gen Won Seeckt and various other
soldiers and nationalists have been say
ing: Neither nations nor people will
fight in order to preserve or restore
peace in the abstract. The German
people might fight at the behest of
the League of Nations if, for example,
the Poles invaded the Danzig Free
State And the French might act if
the Germans invaded the Corridor. But
both actions would be dictated for par
ticular interestS-not by concern for
peace and justice.
The Manchurian episode has demon
strated that fear of the moral opinion
OF mankind will not restrain an i'm
perialiStic nation from an aggressive
action. 1t has similarly revealed the
fact that the member nations of the
League, or, if you please, the sigma
tories of the Kellogg pact, which lets
the United States into the picture, will
not resort to force to preserve or re-
store peace On the contrary, these
nations will not even go to the limit
of placing an embargo on goods or
arms in the case of the aggressor.
All they will do is record their moral
Judgment of disapproval. And in the
japanese case what will be the result
of this? In the first instance and un-
mistakably, the verdict of the League
will produce violent explosion of the
already infiamed nationalistic spirit of
the moment. Feeling themselves iso-
lated, the japanese will, beyond de-
bate, do more and do it with greater
haste and violence, as result of the
introduction of the elements of passion
and resentment
On the other hand, this verdict of