Evening star., 1939-07-25
kcw-Tow

official propaganda and military
bluster that are currently the
weapons of statecraft in Europe and
Asia, 1t is not easy at this range to
distinguish fact from fiction. But in
the Anglo-Japanese imbroglio, which
had its inception in the blockade Of
Tientsin, it is fairly clear that proud
Britain has at length kow-towed to
Japan.
Downing Street, adept through
generations of experience in the art
OF compromise, would doubtless have
the world believe it has once again
invoked that ancient recourse and
thereby saved British face" in the
Orient. Yet, in agreeing that "Japa-
nese forces in China have special
requirements for the purpose of safe
guarding their own security and
maintaining public order in the
regions under their CONTROL" the
Chamberlain government has, in
effect, II not in the circumlocutory
words of diplomacy, given the in
vaders OF China the green light. Is
1t logical to read any other interpre-
tation into Britain's further ac-
acknowledgement that Japanese forces
in China have the right to suppress
or remove any such acts or causes as
will obstruct them or benefit their
enemy?
Talleyrand reputedly said that Ian
guage was given men as vehicle
for concealing thought. Diplomacy
frequently uses words for that pur-
pose. But the language adopted by
Foreign Minister Arita and Ambas-
sador Craigie can hardly conceal the
completeness and abjectness of Brit
aims concessions. They are not
concessions. They are surrender.
The japanese, according to the Asso-
ciated Press, hail the agreement as
sweeping diplomatic victory" They
insist it grants them virtually bellig-
erent rights in their undeclared war
on China. 1t is difficult to deny the
justifiability of Tokio's claims.
Out of the wreckage of lost face"
Mr.. Chamberlain and Lord Halifax
tell Parliament Britain has averted
ANY change of British policy toward
the China war, any de facto recog-
milton of Japanese sovereignty in
controlled areas in China, or
any pledge that Britain has now
definitely taken the side of Japan"
Perhaps not. But the sad, the
incalculably far-reaching, fact re-
mains that the mistress of the seas,
the Western nation with the widest
interests in the Orient, herself Far
Eastern power of the first magni-
tude, has bent the knee to the
would-be arbiters of "the new order
in Asia" The consequences of that
retreat are, as of today, immeasur-
able.
But the causes of this historic
debacle are, Of course, no mystery.
They lie in Europe, and in the Baltic
in particular. 1t is hardly a COIN
cidence that Mr.. Craigie was signing
on Mr.. Arita's dotted line at Toxic
at the very moment a sub-minister
of the Chamberlain cabinet was
dickering, allegedly behind the Prime
Minister'S back, with Hitlers trade
emissary in London for more zap
peasement" of the Nazi moloch.
Responsible British government
spokeSmen deny that young Overseas
Trade Secretary Hudson was au-
thorized to offer Herr Wohlthat a
British loan Of a billion sterling and
colonial "readjustment" as "bribe"
for German disarmament and nom
aggression pledges.
This may be, and probably is, the
technical truth, but it does not, can
not, hide the ugly and disquieting
fact that Britain continues to feel the
need Of conciliating Hitler at
Danzig lest Nazi ambition to DOM
mate Poland plunge the Western de-
mocracies into illimitable commit
ments to make war in Eastern
Europe.
The Berlin-Tokio axis has done its
work-work of which it would be the
height Of folly, at this writing, to
describe as having reached its goal.
Far greater is the probability that
this work, on today's "silver jubilee"
OF Serbia's rejection of the Austrian
ultimatum In 1914, seems to forecast
events destined to make Tientsin and
Danzig as immortal as serajevo.