Japan's Service Estimates Items of news from Tokyo, or from
other quarters, regarding Japan's activities and intentions tend to be uniformly disturbing. The naval estimates just framed are said to be close on £2,000,000 above the present year's high level, and the War Minister is foreshadowing an increase in the expenditure on the land forces. There is no prospect of the budget balancing, and preparations are being made for again covering the deficit by internal loans. The serving admirals have unanimously called on the Prime Minister, who is himself an admiral, to denounce the Washington Treaty. Much of the increased service expenditure is due to the continued tension with Russia. The negotiations for the sale to Japan (nominally to Manchukuo) of the Chinese Eastern Railway have once more broken down, and tension is further increased by the arrest by the Manchukuo Government of some twenty railway officials who are Soviet subjects. Threatened wars often fail to materialize, and Japan is no doubt to some extent sobered by knowledge of the strength of Russia's formidable air force, but the pros- pects for the maintenance of peace are still more preca- rious in Eastern Asia than anywhere else in the world.
