JAPAN: Araki on His Own

On the grassy plains of Hokurokudo 30,000 Japanese troops made mimic war last week in Grand Maneuvers staged for the Sublime Emperor Hirohito by ambitious, sabre-rattling War Minister Sadao Araki who finally grew so elated by his own sense of Power that he committed a major indiscretion.

Without consulting Premier Viscount Makato Saito or obtaining the consent of the civilian Cabinet, Militarist Araki called in correspondents and proposed that Japan hold in 1935 a Pacific Powers Conference with three objectives: 1) “To revise the Nine-Power Treaty” (signed at Washington to guarantee the territorial and administrative integrity of China which Japan violated by seizing Manchukuo). 2) “To revise the Kellogg Peace Pact” (violated in effect by Japan’s waging of undeclared war). 3) “To lay the basis for a new naval treaty.”

The new naval treaty, General Araki hinted, should place the U. S., Britain and Japan on a basis of parity, instead of the present 5-5-3 ratio. Flaying Japanese Finance Minister Takahashi, who is desperately trying to pare down the Japanese Army & Navy estimates, War Minister

Araki barked: ”Should Japan fail to carry out our armament replenishment program and the second naval supplementary plan, the red figures in our budget will become black, it is true, but the prospect of establishing a Far Eastern peace on an enduring basis [i. e. under Japanese dominance] will be lost and the people of Asia will become permanent servants of the white races!”

Against this bull-like entrance by Militarist Araki into the china shop of world diplomacy, the Japanese Foreign Office dared not protest directly, but Yomiuri, a Tokyo newspaper close to Foreign Minister Hirota, cautiously declared: “The Foreign Office is believed to oppose the Conference since the idea behind it is based on lack of real knowledge of the international situation.”

In his “lack of real knowledge” General Araki blithely assumed that the Great Powers, none of whom has recognized Manchukuo, would consent to sit in with Manchukuo at a Japanese-sponsored conference. “I insist,” said Araki, “that Manchukuo must be included.”