Japan Drives On
The most important piece of news that has issued from Tokyo in the past week is the warning of Mr. Takahashi, the Finance Minister, that a naval military expenditure which at present consumes 46 per cent. of the Budget cannot go on. It by no means follows that it will not go on, for the army in Japan regards finance as an affair for the civilians and troubles its head about no such matters. And the army is in supreme control, as events in China continue to demon- strate. Exactly what the army is demanding and has secured is still uncertain. The Nanking Government is understood to have capitulated completely as regards the province of Hopei and to have also agreed to the removal of the Governor of Chahar, who was not suffi- ciently amenable to Japanese " suggestions." The whole of Northern China must now be regarded as a Japanese sphere of influence, in flat defiance of the Nine Power Treaty with its insistence on equal rights for all signatories. Europe's divisions are Japan's opportunity, and there is every indication that she will exploit it to the utmost. Sir Samuel Hoare's reference in the House of Commons to " disquieting developments " was anything but reassuring. But one step Sir Samuel could and should take immediately. To retain the British Embassy at Peking in the circumstances existing is an insult to the Government to which the British Ambassador is accredited. Sir Alexander Cadogan's headquarters should be moved to the Yangtse Valley immediately.
