Evening star., 1944-07-02

II Japan has reason to exercise q
great deal of caution in the use of her
navy and aviation it is because she does
not have the means to replace her losses.
This was fully demonstrated in the re-
cent aerial battle of the Marianas. After
have concentrated much of the Imperial
Fleet in what appeared to be an ex-
cellent fighting position Admiral Toy
oda decided to avoid major surface
clash. In the preliminary engagement
he had lost more ships than apparently
he had expected. The margin of safety
thus has been drastically impaired and
he decided to break of the battle.
Breaking contact in naval surface war
fare is an indication of wisdom and
moral courage rather than cowardice.
Toyoda followed sound strategy when
he withdrew. Otherwise the japanese
Navy would have been annihilated and
Japans defenses would have crumbled
possibly earlier than those of the Reich.
American naval men, regardless of
rank. are still smarting, however, be-
cause of what we may now call the
Pearl Harbor incident" The country
never realized what the incident" might
have meant to the United States had
the japanese followed up their initial
success and applied their entire might
in developing it Immediately. Not only
would Hawaii have been occupied by
the Japs by now, but they could have
landed on the West Coast and we might
now be fighting to displace the enemy
from the American continent itself.
When the war is ended the whole
story Of our lack of preparation will be
revealed. The reason for this potential
tragedy does not lie only in the fact that
in the United States peace is too pacifistic
and idealistic to maintain a large de-
fense force. The real cause was that
nowhere in the Pacific did we have
naval and air bases to watch and if
necessary ward of in time any blow
that might have come from the Asiatic
continent.
Japs Signed Treaties.
After the World War the Government
of the United States believed it could
bring about general disarmament and
perpetual peace by setting an example
to the world. Our Army was reduced to
mere police force, the aviation Jagged
behind. We scrapped good fighting
ships for blueprints at the Washington
Conference in 1920. We obtained in ex-
change agreements called the nine
power pact and the four power pact
whereby certain pious guarantees con-
corning maintenance of the status quo
in the Far East were obtained.
The Japanese signed them with en-
thusiasm. They never intended to keep
them. While we agreed not to fortify
the Philippines or the small islands
from Guam to Hawaii the japanese pro-
ceeded while the ink on the treaties was
still wet to fortify the newly acquired
| German archipelagoes in the Pacific,
generally known as the inundated is
| lands. They never permitted any for
| elgner to set foot on those islands, al
though the provisions of the mandates
required that the islands should not be
fortified
When the matter of their fortification
was raised at the Mandate Commission
OF the League of Nations the japanese
delegate answered callously that Ger
tain cement work was necessary because
OF the erosions created by the Pacific
Ocean," He smiled when the Italian
chairman of the committee retorted
that "the Pacific must have changed it's
habits in the last TOO years" The mat
ter was dropped because Japan threat.
ened to leave the League if the commit
tee pressed the question. Guam was
never fortified because the American
administrations since 1920 did not wish
to offend Japan by giving the impress
sion that we doubted her peace-loying
| motives.
Stain Wants Security.
What the future political picture of
the world will be no one can say. The
major powers of the United Nations
profess their conviction that an indefi-
mite era Of peace and moral and phys.
ical reconstruction will follow the pres
ent massacres and wholesale destruc-
| tion But while making this confess
sion of faith in the future they are
taking no chances.
The Russian government has decid-
| ed to annex in one form or another
the border states or sections thereof.
| not because the vast Soviet empire needs
| more land which belongs to one free
| peoples, but because it does not know
what the future may hold and wishes
its frontiers properly guarded. 1t is
unlikely that the shrewd Premier Stain
would want to cucumber Russia with
Finnish, Baltic, Polish, Romanian and
| possibly other minorities. They have
always been troublesome and Russia
can avoid. But these states are i'm
portant outposts for the defense of the
Soviet Empire and Stain is determined
| to play safe so far as outposts are con-
cerned.
Nothing definite has come from Lon.
don. But there have been strong indi-
cations, which only the near future will
verify, that the British Empire also dos
not take chances with the future. Ac-
cording to reports not yet fully con.
firmed, Britain will insist at the peace
table that her lines of communication
through the Mediterranean shall not be
threatened as they were in the past
when the Italians possessed strategic
islands In the Central and Eastern Med
iterranean while the French controlled
the Western Mediterranean. What the