Mr. Taft, the American Secretary for War, arrived in Japan
on Saturday last for a short visit on his way to the Philippines. The visit has been the signal for a remarkable and illogical outburst of gloomy forebodings in some American newspapers as to the imminence of war between Japan and the United States. It is safer to judge the relations of the Japanese and American Governments by Mr. Taft's own words. At a banquet at Tokio Mr. Taft said, according to Reuter :—" There is only a little cloud over our friendship of fifty years, and the greatest earthquake of the century could not shake our amity." He declared that the San Francisco affair could be fully and honourably settled by diplomacy. War would be a crime against civilisation. Neither of the two peoples wanted it, and the two Governments would strain every nerve to prevent it. Mr. Taft, we note, ,was twice received by the Emperor. Even the projected transference of the effective part of the American Navy from the Atlantic to the Pacific makes it difficult to account for the distorted comments of American newspapers on Mr. Taft's visit. One would think that all his words were meant to be interpreted in an exactly contrary sense-to that which they bear. -
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