Blunder of Magnitude

Tokyo was tense with apprehension of a coup d'etat last week. For the first time a newsorgan of first magnitude made articulate the mounting fear that Japan's parliamentary institutions (imported only 42 years ago from the West) might be thrust aside by the military clique which launched Japan on her recent Manchurian and Shanghai adventures.

"While we hope that the worst is over, there is no telling what may suddenly develop," declared Tokyo's Nichi Nickl Shimbun. "We are told that there are in the country ominous trends of thought which look for the replacement of reason by power. . . . Never before has the Diet stood in greater need of prestige and authority than at present."

The diet was formally opened at 11 a. m. next day by the Son of Heaven, Emperor Hirohito, and at once adjourned as the diet always does to permit political adjustments behind the scenes before Japan's elected Deputies again face the public.

The Cabinet last week was in a state bordering chaos. The Minister of Interior had resigned and such a squabble for his place ensued that Premier Ki Inukai was obliged to become temporarily his own Minister of Interior, was solemnly invested as such by the Sublime Emperor.

The Premier had lately done a most extraordinary thing. He, whose Government launched the Japanese thrust against Shanghai (TIME, Feb. 1), had contributed the introduction to a book published in the U. S. last week which declared:*

"Whatever the official explanation, whatever the extenuating circumstances, Japan's single-handed intervention in the Shanghai area is a blunder of the first magnitude."

This statement, appearing under the personal patronage of Japan's Premier while Japanese forces were still occupying Shanghai last week, showed how close the Empire had come to anarchy--the anarchists being that group of Japanese generals and admirals who contemplate a coup d'etat.

Troops. Three Japanese transports left Shanghai with 20,000 troops aboard last week, but 30,000 troops remained. Sufficiently remarkable were the farewell words of General Yoshinori Shirakawa to the embarking troops:

"Soldiers!

"The conditions at home and abroad are increasing in difficulty daily and the responsibility which the imperial troops face in these circumstances is mounting gradually. Under these conditions, upon returning home you must train yourselves sufficiently to be ready to rally to the call immediately when things happen."

Since China's forces had withdrawn some 20 miles from Shanghai (TIME, March 14), Japan's remaining 30,000 troops had last month's battlefield to themselves. Upon it last week they proceeded to stage a sham battle. Advancing with shouts of "Banzai!" against a nonexistent Chinese foe, the Japanese captured position after position, firing their rifles and machine guns as they did so. Realism was added by the presence of hundreds of decomposing Chinese dead upon the field.

Seemingly General Shirakawa thought this "battle" would improve the morale of the Imperial troops. His own state of mind became more & more remarkable. Although the Occidental residents of Shanghai's International Settlement have recently seen whole shiploads of Japanese troops disembark in their Settlement, General Shirakawa took the position last week that all Japanese forces had disembarked outside the Settlement. "The Japanese army hopes," declared the General's official spokesman, "that its sacrificial effort to save the Settlement from gunfire is appreciated by all."*

Assassins. In Tokyo the series of assassinations which lately has put so many of Japan's leading "Peace Men" in their graves was tidied up by the police last week. Disregarding the theory that there must have been "higher ups" of some sort, the police blamed everything on a humble Buddhist priest and his lowly associates in a "Death Band."

Eleven other men besides the priest were arrested. They confessed (said the police) that their "Death Band," in addition to its actual killings, had planned to assassinate: Board Chairman Kushida of Mitsubishi Bank, managing director Ikeda of Mitsui Bank; President Kodama of Yokohama Specie Bank; Baron Go, president of Tokyo Electric Light Co. and former Premier Reijiro Wakatsuki. Only a Japanese knows the full magnitude of these names, equivalent in Japan to such names in the U. S. as Wiggin, Insull, Coolidge.

Sugar Scandal. To cap the crisis in Tokyo there broke half open last week the colossal scandal of Meiji Sugar Co. The police admitted, informally, that they dared not and did not propose to arrest the exceedingly prominent Japanese involved. They did arrest a former Deputy of the Minseito (Opposition) Party, Ejiro Miyoshi, wealthy publisher.

He, the police thought, had taken a bribe of 100,000 yen ($50,000 at par) to keep quiet about an evasion of taxes by Meiji Sugar Co. amounting to 10,000,000 ($5,000,000). This evasion was accomplished by bribes, after which the blackmailing began. In all Meiji Sugar Co. was said to have been "squeezed" for 1,600,000 yen ($800,000).

"Worthy Compeer," Most cheerful events in Japan's capital last week was the farewell round of banquets to William Cameron Forbes, soon to be succeeded as U. S. Ambassador in Tokyo by Joseph Clark Grew, a cousin by marriage of John P. Morgan.

"Ambassador Forbes is neither credulous nor crochety," said Japanese Foreign Minister Kenkichi Yoshizawa handsomely at one of these functions. "He is never ridden by nightmares of suspicion."

"Ambassador Forbes is a worthy compeer of George Washington," declared Prince Tokugawa, President of the House of Peers.

Finally the Son of Heaven received Mr. Forbes in an unusually long audience. "Nothing has occurred or will occur," declared the Ambassador, "to menace the good feelings between the United States and Japan."

Next day the Japanese Foreign Office learned that Statesman Stimson had absolutely refused to recognize the puppet regime Japan has set up in Manchuria. Hotly the Foreign Office's press spokesman burst out: "The United States cannot rob us of the fruits of our victory by withholding recognition of the new Manchurian State!"

*JAPAN SPEAKS on THE SINO-JAPANESE CRISIS--K. K. Kawakami, Washington correspondent of the Tokyo Hoclii Shimbun--Macmillan ($1.50).

*The Settlement was saved from Chinese gunfire solely by the fact that it harbored so many Occidentals that the Chinese dared not fire for fear of killing U. S. citizens, Britons. French-men.

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