Japan in Possession
The situation in the Far East continues to be broadly what Japan desires it to be. The Lytton Commission has entered Manchuria, and has been warned that its safety cannot be guaranteed if it leaves the railway zone— whence Japanese troops issued on September 19th to make Manchuria safe for democracy. They are to-day scattered over every strategic point in the province to buttress the new Government they have installed, and it is announced that the Government has appointed Japanese advisers in every important Ministry. The result of more than seven months of Japanese occupation is that a League of Nations Commission, if it pursues its investigations anywhere but up and down the South Manchurian Railway, will do so at the peril of its life. At Shanghai the Japanese remain in occupation of impor- tant Chinese territory and can afford to regard with com- plete equanimity the interminable discussions both on the spot and at Geneva as to the date of an evacuation which the League Assembly demanded with some imperiousness over six weeks ago. Everything indicates that if Japan withdraws at all it will be when she chooses to withdraw. The impotence of the League of Nations is being more widely advertised by every sitting the Assembly's Special Committee holds, and it is impossible to evade the dis-
turbing conclusion, ,not,, indeed that the Covenant has broken down, but that the League States have failed fla- grantly to defend it. The British representatives at Geneva seem intent on consulting Tokyo's convenience in all things. * * * *
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