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JAPAN'S DIFFICULT POSITION

By K. K. KAWAKAMI

HESE are hazardous times to discuss international problems. For the present, it is natural that our attention should be riveted upon the Armageddon of Europe. Yet before the great war comes to an end, the American government and people will, and must, turn their eyes across the Pacific and take stock of what will have developed in that direction during the trying years of their titanic struggle with Germany.

Unquestionably, the nation which looms significantly on the far horizon of the Pacific is Japan. It is trite to say that this island nation intends to become the dominant political and economic factor in eastern Asia, if she has not already become so. What she is thinking and doing at this moment, with special reference to her foreign relations, is of foremost importance in considering the Far Eastern situation and its relations to the war.

In discussing Japan's position in the Far East and in world politics, there are two points of view from which we may approach the question. The first is the assumption that after this war the world will, as President Wilson hopes and trusts, be made safe for democracy; that poor, unprepared, small nations will never again be preyed upon by rich, powerful, military nations; that the restriction of armament among nations will be effected upon an equitable basis; and that justice and fairness will prevail without recourse to force. The second point of view is the hypothesis that the present order of international relations will, in the main, survive the war, and will, at least for many generations to come, continue to prevail. In estimating Japanese policies and intentions, it will make a great difference which of the two premises we accept.

With all our fervent prayers for the complete readjustment of international relations in accordance with the ideals of justice, we may still be permitted to doubt whether nations which have for many centuries been actuated by selfish motives in international dealings, will suddenly experience so radical a change of heart that a new era of peace and good-will will dawn upon the earth at the end of the world war. Admitting that the war will have a tremendous influence upon the minds of individuals and of nations, we may still be justified in wondering whether the crucible of carnage will succeed in remoulding human nature and in converting it into something fundamentally different from what it has been for unnumbered years.

We all hail with the greatest enthusiasm President Wilson's declaration that militarism and autocracy must be destroyed, but this should not prevent us from submitting to the tribunal of public opinion certain vital questions which such a declaration naturally raises. In the first place, how will the stupendous armament which the war has called into existence in all the belligerent countries, be retrenched upon the conclusion of peace? How will the powers dispose of the gigantic fleets of warships which they have built and are building for the war? Will they agree to put their dreadnaughts and their guns upon the scrap heap? And, again, what will become of the magnificent fleets of merchant vessels which the nations have built for the transportation of troops and war supplies? Will they become, upon the termination of the war, a formidable factor in the international rivalry for commercial supremacy—a rivalry which no one can be sure will not develop into an armed conflict, as has too often happened in the past?

It is with no small apprehension upon these and similar subjects that the Japanese are listening to the echoes of public opinion in the West and are studying the possible ambitions and aspirations of the occidental powers after the war. Surely it is but natural that Japan, a small and impe

cunious country lying next door to China, the Balkans of the East, should feel restive as to the way in which the war may affect her position.

Japan has been enabled to make her position comparatively secure mainly by dint of the army and navy she has managed to upbuild at the expense of many measures imperative for the welfare of her masses. Let her throw that army and navy into the vortex of the European war, and she would once again sink into the place of nonentity in which the powers found her fifty years ago. And the distressing fact is that if her modest armament should be destroyed in the wholesale manner of the present war, her financial resources are so limited that she would not for many ages be able to replace it-unless, forsooth, she were permitted to secure an indemnity or some other material compensation. The effect of such an eventuality upon the peace of the Far East it is not difficult to foresee.

Even if Japan be allowed to keep intact through the present war what armament she has, she cannot but feel uneasy, as she beholds the astounding devices for slaughter daily developed by the nations now locked in deadly combat. In the face of the gigantic machinery of the new warfare, Bushido, that vaunted Japanese spirit of gallantry, counts for little, and the fighters of Nippon know it. To-day Japan has none of the deadly machines which the warring nations are employing on the various fronts. She has no military airplanes to speak of, let alone tanks and poison-gas machines. Even her cannon and rifles are out of date. She has but seventeen submarines; and her destroyers, excepting a few, are so small that they cannot be sent far from her own shores. What wonder that the Japanese press is practically unanimous in urging the necessity of "preparedness"? The editors point, one and all, to the appalling cataclysm that has befallen Europe in this enlightened age of the twentieth century, and shake their heads in doubt and apprehension over any prediction of disarmament after this war.

Commercial rivalry has always been a potential cause of hostility among nations. Whether this condition can be completely altered by the "removal of economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions" among nations, is at least open to question. Given a field of unrestricted competition, the gainer will always be that nation which possesses the largest territory and enjoys the greatest natural resources as well as the greatest financial strength. Against such powerful rivals, small, impecunious nations can never hope to compete successfully, unless they employ methods which, though absolutely legitimate from their point of view, may be denounced by the established rich nations as tricky and unfair, or unless all inhabitants of this planet become "citizens of the world" and outgrow such artificial restrictions as national boundaries. The little nations will not, of course, gladly accept the unenviable position of dependency, whether political or economic. And here is a factor which promises to breed trouble even under the new condition of trade equality, if this be established upon the existing status quo of the relative territorial, financial, and economic strength of nations.

There can be no objection to the principle of equality of trade conditions. As a principle, it is well-considered. Undoubtedly it is more advanced than the idea enunciated seventy years ago by Lord Palmerston, that "trade follows the flag," that all powers of government shall back the financial operations of individual citizens who make speculative investments for profit in foreign countries. The question is merely whether the cause of justice can best be served by proclaiming the principle of equality of commercial conditions among nations, after a few nations have, through the practice of the doctrine that trade follows the flag, accumulated enormous wealth and acquired vast resources throughout the world.

We may go a step further, and ask whether the great powers of the West are really willing to establish a semblance

of "equality." Even President Wilson, in stating America's war aims on the eighth of January, felt constrained to qualify his advocacy of commercial equality with the significant phrase "so far as possible." Clearly, the President fully realizes the difficulty of following consistently and faithfully the idea which he so earnestly advocates.

The complexity of the problem may be illustrated from practical questions involving the interests of both Japan and the United States. America stands for the "open door" in China. She demands, and justly, unrestricted commercial and economic activities for her citizens in that country. She does not recognize any "sphere of influence,' and would allow no third power to stand in her way in the promotion of her economic interests in China. This contention is right. With it Japan has no quarrel. Again and again she has declared herself in accord with the "open door" doctrine of America with reference to China.

But the question arises, will the United States recognize the same principle in Mexico? If the tone of American newspapers and the utterances of American publicists be an indication of American policy in Mexico, we are compelled to feel that the United States is unwilling to apply to Japanese enterprises in Mexico the principle of the "open door" which she would apply to the enterprises of her own citizens in the Far East. It is a matter of common knowledge that the government at Tokyo, in deference to public opinion in this country, does not issue passports to its subjects desiring to come to Mexico. If Japanese entrepreneurs should make their appearance in Mexico and attempt to open mines or work farm lands on an extensive scale, there would probably be a hue and cry here in America against the "Japanese invasion" of Mexico. Even Japanese immigration to Brazil or Peru is often regarded by American newspapers as a menace to the United States. In these latter days the apostles of the Monroe Doctrine are putting into that theory new meanings that never, perhaps, entered the mind of