JAPAN'S FEET OF CLAY
By Freda Utley
Miss Utley has here written an arrest- ing book (Faber, 15s.). It should be read both by those who fear Japan and by those who admire her overmuch. Miss Utley's thesis is that the imposing structure of Japanese economic and military power is a house built on sand, that the price of her progress has borne so heavily on the masses other people that they must before long reach the breaking-point. The argument which supports this conclusion is at all points buttressed by a wealth of cogent evi- dence, both in statistics and in quota- tions from many Japanese sources which Miss Utley has studied at first hand. The reader will find that he is carried along from one vivid paragraph to another ; and only when he lays down the book to pause and ponder over its remarkable revelation of the hidden cruelty which prevails in the social life of the people will he be prompted to question the essential truth AA Miss Utley's diagnosis. There is hardly a statement of hers which is not true, but her book fails to tell the whole truth. If Japan were indeed devoured at her heart by the evils here described, and if she possessed within her being no countervailing sources of real national strength, she must indeed fail. But she does possess these springs of power, and Miss Utley's refusal to recognise them makes her interpretation incomplete. None the less, Miss Utley tells a tale which no reader should ignore.
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