Japan's Problems
But Japan is demanding more attention than China at the moment. What is happening internally is difficult to discover, but it is clear that the present Government, in spite of the considerable majority secured as result of the recent election, cannot last much longer. There are signs of some censorship of outgoing news, but the inipression conveyed by various messages reaching this country is that a National Government is about to be formed as the best means of forestalling a pOSsible military coup. Japan's successes in the field at Shanghai have not been such as to bring great kudos to the military caste, but the soldiers no doubt take the view that they have been impeded by the scruples of civilian Ministers, who must therefore be swept aside. This interpretation of the situation necessarily rests partly on conjecture, for the messages coming through have been brief and ambiguous. Meanwhile Mr. Yoshizawa, the Foreign Minister, has been reviewing the external situation in language which suggests that the League of Nations' difficulties with Japan are by no means over. The Shanghai conflict, which he characterizes as a merely local affair, has cost something like 15,000 lives, and material damage which the Chinese put at the probably inflated figure of £100,000,000. Towards the 'new Manchurian administration Mr. Yoshizawa adopts a much more detached attitude than his colleague, Mr. Sato, did at Geneva.
