A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE Japanese, recognised from 1941 to . 1945 as particularly cruel and treacherous barbarians, were subsequently reclassified by General MacArthur as starry-eyed democrats, dedicated to baseball and the cause of peace. Now they have begun to impinge, in one way or another, upon the British, who had more or less forgotten about them; and the British have instantly turned them into a music-hall joke, of the wry, sub-acid type which comedians make about things (like rationing and the Dean of Canterbury) which everyone dislikes but nobody can do anything about. I think that this reaction reflects credit on our political instinct. The ends which Japan is bound, alike by the pressure of her virile population and by her expansionist tradition, to pursue, and the means by which, on form, she is likely to pursue them, seem to me certain in the long run to bring her into conflict with British interests; and the Japanese, who are not at all good losers, are unlikely to overlook any chalices that may come their way of paying off old scores.
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