JAPAN: An End to Toadying

One of the unhappiest of those who were waiting for bombs in London last week was little Japanese Ambassador Mamoru Shigemitsu. One reason he was unhappy was because he knew all about bombs. On the morning of April 29, 1932, an insurgent Korean rushed a grandstand in Shanghai’s Hongkew Park, where Japanese were celebrating the Emperor’s birthday, and threw a “thermos bottle” into the crowd. The thermos exploded, and Mamoru Shigemitsu (then Minister to China) got 32 splinters in his leg. A week later, in a hospital bed, he signed the agreement ending that year’s Shanghai hostilities, shook the hand of China’s Director of Intelligence Samuel Chang, then had his leg amputated.

A second reason he was unhappy was because that same Sammy Chang, for whom Shigemitsu had felt sincere affection, was assassinated in Shanghai three weeks ago by Japanese thugs, presumably of the Army’s Special Service Section.

But Ambassador Shigemitsu’s biggest claim to unhappiness was the way Japanese-British relations were going. Ever since his appointment in 1938, the Ambassador has worked hard for British friendship. Last week incident piled on incident.

The Japanese have long been spy-crazy. Not only is their national curiosity as huge as their stature is tiny but the people are suspicious to the point of comedy. So when it was revealed last week that 13 British subjects had been arrested as spies, the nation had a spy scare which made U. S. alarm over the fifth column look like a bored yawn. The whole nation began snooping. The Army issued a manifesto urging cooperation “in purging Japan of all espionage.” Newspapers published hints, threats, alarms. Someone suggested that a British oil company had an agent at every filling station. The dowdy Japanese-British Luncheon Club was accused of being a nest of spies. It was maintained that over 400 foreign educators were really foreign operators. Salvation Army workers were gravely cross-questioned.

To the British Government this was quite unfunny. Especially serious was the violent death—the Japanese claimed it was “suicide”—of one of the arrested suspects, Reuters Correspondent Melville James Cox (TIME, Aug. 5). Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax sent an invitation for a little conversation around to Ambassador Shigemitsu. Sober Viscount Halifax told the Ambassador that unless the ar rested men were immediately freed, Britain’s anger would be great.

The Japanese bridled. “If the British take Japan for a sucker,” warned Asahi in the wrong national idiom, “they will find it is their own necks they are stretching out.” Two more Britons were arrested. Foreign Office Spokesman Yakichiro Suma rejected the British protest. The Cabinet issued its program, which revolved around a new but strangely reminiscent phrase: Greater East Asia (incorporating Indo-China, The Netherlands Indies, possibly Burma, in Japan’s sphere of action). Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka warned: “The Japanese Government is through with toadying.”

Ambassador Shigemitsu finally persuaded his Government that Britain might take some drastic action. Six of the arrested 15 were released. This, the British decided, was not enough. At week’s end unhappy Mamoru Shigemitsu was obliged to announce that Satoru Makihara, London manager of the vast Mitsubishi interests since last year, had been visited by plainclothesmen from Scotland Yard, who gave him time for a quick snack, then took him away; that Shunsuke Tanade, acting head of the similarly vast Mitsui interests, had also been arrested. Mamoru Shigemitsu stumped around to the Foreign Office and angrily protested these reprisals. Replied a Foreign Office spokesman: these were not reprisals, these were “pure coincidence.”

This week the Japanese Foreign Office freed four more Britons but Japan still claimed that the British reply was “unsatisfactory.” After further Japanese protests, Britain freed Satoru Makihara.