Japan at Peking It is a deplorable commentary on the
importance of the Powers organized for collective action through the League of Nations that Japan, having seized first Mukden, and then the whole of Manchuria, by a coup which has been formally and deliberately condemned as illegitimate by all the world, should by this time have carried her equally illegitimate advance to the gates of Peking. Repeated announcements have been made that there .will be no permanent occupation of the city— just as repeated announcements were made that there would be no occupation of Manchuria. Meanwhile it is satisfactory to note an answer given by Mr. MacDonald in the House of Commons on Monday, to t he effect that the, Government refused to recognize the right of Man- chukuo to expel a British subject, since it is a breach of treaty rights to deport a British citizen " from Chinese territory " without legal process. The Prime Minister had already recalled, in answer to another question, thatHis Majesty's Government was bound by the League Asseinbly's reportett: -to-accord recognition to Man.; chukuo, which, ina fact, ho 'country but japan had recognized.' 'It is something that the policy of non- recognition should be thus universally maintained, and it is to be hoped there will be no tendency to whittle away the policy in practice.
