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This article focuses on political developments around the world as of March 4, 1939. Alarmed by the impact of the anti-Japanese boycott, leading Japanese business men in the United States held a private conclave recently to discuss counter-measures. To accompany an article on the naval maneuvers Time recently published a map showing the line-up in the Caribbean. French papers are telling the story of an Italian sculptor who carved a Venus and buried it in a field.

This article focuses on the book "America to Japan: A Symposium of Papers by Representative Citizens of the United States on the Relations Between Japan and America and on the Comment Interests of the Two Countries," edited by Lindsay Russell. The symposium of papers by Japanese writers of distinction, entitled "Japan to America", the present volume is a response. To insure the future development of Japan, it is imperative that she preserve and strengthen her friendship with both the great English-speaking peoples, and gradually substitute their representative institutions for her present imperialism.

The world economy has recently exhibited many contradictory phenomena, but perhaps none more extraordinary than Japan's rapid trade expansion during the past two years. While some other countries have regained a small fraction of their pre-depression trade, Japan has already reached a point within striking distance of its 1929 total. The moment for this trade drive, which began while Japan was slashing its way through "scraps of paper" such as the Nine Power Treaty and the anti-war pact, could have been better timed. The increases in Japan's trade during the past two years make a substantial showing. Total Japanese trade advanced from 2,383,000,000 yen in 1931 to 3,778,000,000 in 1933, as compared to the 4,365,000,000 in 1929.

Little news has come out of India during the past two months. Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru is silent behind prison walls and if the people continue to demonstrate on the streets, papers have not reported it. But silence does not necessarily imply submission. India still boils with frustration and unrest. It is the scene of one of the most dismal political failures of the United Nations and Japanese machinations are working to turn that failure into victory for the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." The central figure in the Japanese campaign is Subhas Chandra Bose, beloved by millions of Indians who remember him as a fiery patriot and leftist leader.

This article focuses on the book "The American Japanese Problem. A Study of the Racial Relations of the East and the West," by Sidney L. Gulick. This is an eminently judicious handling of a perplexing question. The threat made ten years ago by disappointed newspaper men, that the snubs they received at the Japanese military headquarters would not be forgotten, has since been made good in persistent news- paper misrepresentation and antagonism. The different national temper of the Japanese, who rely on their home government to present their grievances at the capital in a way that forces respectful attention, has irritated the complacent local politician, accustomed to the more subservient Chinese attitude.

This article focuses on various political and social issues around the world. The formal announcement made through the financial agents of Japan in this country, that the Japanese government has decided on a drastic cut in its military and naval outlay, need cause no surprise. Germany has explained that when she let loose her latest Moroccan thunderbolt, she was merely offering advice, but French journalists when discussing German policy with regard to Morocco will continue to use the favorite adjective, brutal. The Kentish hop-growers are having a hard year. A few months ago they were complaining so bitterly on the "dumping," of American hops on the English market that a select committee was appointed to report on the industry. A striking difference may be pointed out between the Roman Catholic Church and the average young person who writes verses for the magazines.

Reactions of France to the Japanese attack on Shanghai are very significant. During the session of the Council of the League of Nations in Paris in November and December 1931, most of those that closely followed proceedings of the Council had a strong suspicion that there was a secret understanding between France and Japan. Now that the capitulation of the League Council has had the consequences that it was bound to have the attitude of the French press confirms the suspicion that there is a secret Franco Japanese understanding.

This article focuses on the international relations between various countries. The Axis-Japan pact has been called everything from a bluff to the blueprint of a new totalitarian world order. In fact it is a typical Nazi maneuver, and so it combines some elements of both. But Hitler has always used failure as a stepping-stone for new advances, and while it is legitimate to take satisfaction at the stubborn courage which has ended the hope of an autumn invasion of England, wise observers will not discount the importance of Hitler's grandiose substitute scheme. The pact with Japan has been treated, of course, as a resounding diplomatic triumph, and no doubt it will be accepted as such by the bemused masses of Germany and Italy.

It seems certain that Japan must in its own right be a leading power in East Asia. The Japanese are the most highly educated people in Asia, much better educated than many Western peoples. They are skilled in science and technology, organization and management. Unlike many Asian nations they are remarkably homogeneous in race, religion, language and culture. But on the political and military fronts the story is different. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato has expressed his government's sympathy with U.S. objectives in Vietnam. In the last few years the Japanese leaders have gained the confidence to make it clear, however politely, that they want to make their assessments of what is happening in Asia, and to decide for themselves the role they want to play.

This article focuses on the treaty between the Great Britain and Japan during the World War. This treaty still remains a mere piece of composition on paper, an agreement between two governments of West and East but does not represent the mutual understanding of one race with another. Japan stands in a rather safe place at present, where no immediate serious consequences of the war will be felt. With such a blessing of the situation, Japanese can practice an art of criticism even with an accompaniment of wine and smoke.

The article focuses international relation. Confidential dispatches were received at the U.S. State Department, which are said to confirm the general tone of the forecasts of the German reply to the American note cabled by correspondents from Berlin, Germany. Whether the relaxation of activity by German submarines during the past two weeks represents the normal period of respite, respite from Nepenthe, which succeeds strenuous days. It indicates an intention on the part of Germany to moderate her submarine warfare. Dispatches from China on Monday revealed the fact that in the middle of May, during the crisis between China and Japan, an identical warning had been conveyed to both countries that the United States would not recognize any agreement, which impaired American rights in China or endangered the policy of the open door.

The article presents recent developments in world politics. There has been no further development during the past week in the situation in Romania or other Balkan states. It seems significant, however, that a loan of $25,000,000 has been arranged for Romania in England, and if dispatches from Rome and Athens published in recent papers are to be accepted. Whatever Italy's ultimate decision on the question of peace or war may be, it becomes increasingly evident that decision will be taken by Italy alone, uninfluenced by threats or persuasions of other Germany and Austria. Somewhat sensational dispatches from Chinese government were published on January 27 concerning demands that Japan had made upon China following the Japanese occupation of Kiao-chau.

Presents several letters to the editor. Information about foreign affairs in the United States; Discussion about the public opinion against Japan; Criticism and understanding of this world by school students.

The Chinese have always been a curious people and they are possessed of some very queer old customs. The managers of the Greatest Show on Earth seem to have chosen the present Soviet Union government to act as their Invisible Property Man. Officially they refuse to believe that there is such a thing as a Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. As far as Washington is concerned, official Soviet Union simply does not exist. There is some trouble, so it appears, about the exact status of a certain country called Manchuria. Japan wants that country and China wants it or has it and the two nations threaten to go to war with each other on account of this distant and mysterious territory.

The article focuses on the relationships between Japan and the U.S. during 1923. Japanese relations. Viscount Shibusawa, who is now eighty three years old, is Japan's leading merchant, and one of her wisest and most prominent publicists. More than a year has now passed since the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament. Many considerations render it desirable that the peoples of these two countries should take stock of what has already been accomplished and what remains to be done in achieving the desire of the great majority of the countries on both sides of the Pacific, that the best possible understanding and even the kindliest feelings shall prevail and continue indefinitely.

This article presents the concluding chapters of an official history of Japanese intervention published by the Special Delegation of the Far Eastern Republic to the United States. Soon after the conference of the toiling people had elected the Government of Verkhne-Udinsk, in East Siberia, it was recognized by the Government of the Amur Province as the central government for the entire Far East. Afraid that the Maritime Government which had been recognized as the provisional government, might also extend its recognition to the Government of Verkhne-Udinsk as a central government, the Japanese began to exert on it an incessant pressure, not even stopping at threats. At the same time the Japanese also began to coquet with the Maritime Government, declaring it to be the only truly democratic government, and that Japan would recognize it if it would place itself at the head of al the provincial governments.

This article presents information on various political issues around the world. It is almost thirty years since a small party, mostly civil-service reformers, sat down to breakfast in Washington, with the view of introducing their subject to the notice of a few men in public life, one of whom was a U.S. Senator. The legislature at Albany usually sits about four months, but the time occupied by the session bears comparatively little relation to the bulk of legislation turned out. Early in January the members of the parliamentary opposition introduced an address to the throne making the present ministers responsible for the retrocession of the Liaotung Peninsula and the failure of Japan's Corean policy.

The article discusses the buildup to World War II. There is little doubt that Japan is planning the construction of battleships larger than the 35,000 tons allowed under the London Naval Treaty of 1930, if it has not already started to build them. The sharp request for information on this point, amounting to an ultimatum, from the United States, Great Britain, and France would therefore superficially seem destined only to irritate the Japanese. Actually, this joint action of the powers has two purposes. It serves notice that the three democracies intend scrupulously to observe the forms of international law-in itself no mean-purpose in a world increasingly given to lawlessness-and that they include Japan in the company of those countries whose word is not to be taken seriously.

This article presents information on various political developments in the world. The party Cabinet in Japan that came into power with so much applause in June has reached an inglorious end in a shorter time even than its enemies predicted. Its supporters at the start confidently affirmed that this Cabinet would have a term of six years at least, while its enemies, the Conservatives attached to the old regime, hardly dared to limit its duration to less than two years. A tenure of office lasting scarcely four months has seen the rise, decline, and fall of the first party cabinet in Japan, together with a complete disintegration of the Constitutional party. Ever since the war of 1870, France imagined that she had and could have but one enemy, the thought of a war with England never entered her mind. Not that there was anything between France and England like an alliance, France thought that her ancient ally of the Crimea had been too indifferent to her misfortunes, and had too readily acquiesced in the hard conditions of the Treaty of Frankfort. But this sentiment did not create any ill-will, as the war of 1870 had really been provoked by the Empire, as it had been short, and as the victories of Prussia had been too crushing to give to the neutral Powers much influence in the result.

The article presents news related to world politics. There is one strong resemblance between the position of the British prime minister David Lloyd George and the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Whenever a by-election takes place they meet with defeat. Wilson has not added much to the clarification of the Shantung situation. The President hastened to make it plain that in the view of the Big Four there is no connection between the question of the return of Shantung and the execution of the agreement of 1915 between China and Japan. But no explanations can remove permitting Japan to succeed to rights which were obtained by Germany from her by force and duress.

The article authors are of the view that recognition of China would lead to unlocking the shackles that have so far confined the Chinese giant, and allowed Japan and the U.S. to operate virtually undisturbed in an area that is historically, ethnically, economically and politically akin to China. Thus the trans-Pacific agreement is important to the maintenance of these economic superpowers. It means a gamble that a Tokyo-Washington alliance, based partly on Sino-Soviet petulance, can chaperone Japanese-American capitalism, more or less intact, into the 21st century. In order to "win" this three-way international bet, the U.S. must hold Japan and China apart; and Japan must keep itself and the U.S. aloof from China.

Moscow has had its way at the Communist summit. For the Soviets the international conference of seventy-five Communist and workers parties, which met in the Kremlin, was at once a liturgical exercise at home and a political maneuver against Peking, China. For the Moscow-oriented movement outside the Soviet bloc it was a quickening experience On the other hand, the Communist parties of Japan, North Korea, North Vietnam and most of southern Asia, which seek to remain aloof from both Moscow and Peking, are gratified that they did not participate in what turned out to be a focused attack on Maoism, earlier Soviet promises not withstanding. Peking has called it a "sinister counterrevolutionary conference" and a despicable plot

The article presents the economic and political updates of the U.S., as of November 25, 1909. Careful perusal of the opinion in Saturday's decision against the Standard Oil Co. will convince most readers of the journal "The Nation," that it is not only sound law as the statutes stand, but is conservative interpretation of the law. The decision of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is, like the Supreme Court Vs Northern Securities decision of 1904, leveled primarily against the holding-company device, when employed for monopolistic purposes. In another political update, the U.S. State Department's approval of the China-Japanese conventions concerning Manchuria, China, signed on September 4, comes somewhat belated, but welcome nevertheless.

The article comments on various social and political developments around the world. There has been considerable stir over the anti-Japanese bills laid before the California Legislature; and in an address in Washington on Monday, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt has made a fresh demand for a "square deal" for the Japanese. Apparently, the matter is now to be threshed over again in the terrifying headlines of the sensational press. But a recent investigation by the Federal Bureau of Labor shows how little basis there is for the demagogue's frequent assertion that his opposition to the Japanese is neither blind nor selfish, but can stand the test of facts and logic.

The article focuses on issues related to international relations. It is hard to believe that so discreet an official as the foreign minister of so diplomatic a nation as the Japanese should have really made use of the uncalled for and almost brutal threats against the Chinese Government, with which a Korean dispatch credits him. In the absence, however, of testimony to the contrary, Japanese foreign minister Viscount Hayashi is on record as declaring that the fate of Korea may be regarded by China as a lesson; it should be a warning to that country to put her house in order, ere some strong nation, whichever one might be moved so to do, imitates events in Korea. From the moment when peace was signed with the Boers at Vereeniging, South Africa in 1902, the union of Africa south of the Limpopo and Orange Rivers, South Africa under one autonomous government might have been taken for granted. The British trend towards colonial federation, which had manifested itself in North America and Australia under the sole influence of internal causes, could not but run with greater force in South Africa, where was to be found the additional powerful stimulus of neighboring foreign territories and, consequently, foreign rivalry.

This article focuses on the sociopolitical developments in various parts of the world. This has been a test year for organized labor of the U.S. Two years ago, wages were on an ascending scale, the movement culminating in the demands of railroad hands in all parts of the country for a larger share of the profits resulting from the great industrial boom. The extent and the cost of the victory at Liaoyang are still in doubt, no such doubt invests the sudden coming of Japan to her military majority. Indeed, the war power of Japan has already been admitted with a premature if prophetic readiness.

Earlier this month the nations of the world met in Buenos Aires to try to agree on how to implement the climate treaty that 166 nations signed last winter in Kyoto, Japan. But their efforts, as well as the provisions of the Kyoto treaty, can accomplish little in the face of the relentless obstruction emanating from the U.S. Congress. Instead of proposing constructive solutions, Congressional naysayers deny that global warming is a threat and are blocking the U.S. Government's cautious, minimalist initiatives.

The article discusses world politics. Neither in Paris nor in England has any definite in- formation been given about the December 1937 Anglo-French conversations in Brussels, Belgium. It is doubtful whether all members of the British and French governments have been fully informed about them. It is, however, certain that the conversations did not result in a decision to make a stand against the arrogant and aggressive policy of the new Fascist Triple Alliance. So far as Japan is concerned, the capitulation is already complete.

The New York utility fight appears to have settled down to an endurance contest with both sides playing hard for public support. Not to be outdone by Mayor LaGuardia's flair for the dramatic, the Consolidated Gas Company, parent of a flock of smaller utilities, announced a reduction in the quarterly dividend payable March 13, 1935 from 50 to 25 cents. They hold no brief for JAPAN, and find no justification for its denunciation of the Washington naval treaty. But no action taken by the Japanese in the past year has been more calculated to stir up animosity and bitterness than the recent statement by Admiral Reeves that the American fleet would hold its annual maneuvers this year off the cost of Japan.

1933 has been the most critical in the short history of the League of Nations, which held its first Assembly at Geneva just thirteen years ago. On March 27, 1933 the Japanese government gave the requisite two years' notice of its intention to withdraw from the League, in consequence to the unanimous adoption by the Assembly on February 24, 1933 of a report on the conflict between China and Japan which was accepted by China and rejected by Japan. The League capitulated to Japan and the report is a dead letter.

The article focuses on various political conditions. The U.S. Senate has again done a great service to the country and to international relations by adding to the Naval Appropriation Bill a rider authorizing the President to call another international disarmament conference in Washington. Those twenty-eight republicans who supported the minority report on the oil leases in the Senate the other day might as logically have gone out upon the Capitol steps, stood on their heads, and been photographed waving their senatorial legs in the air. Anxiously the Conservative press tries to make it appear that Japan's recognition of Russia involves Russia's surrender of all her claims and pretensions in the Far East.

The article presents information on the foreign policy matters in the first hundred days of United States President Dwight David Eishenhower's administration. The terrific punch which the Eisenhower Administration was to inject into America's foreign policy now looks like a shadow-boxer's feint. The fiery irresponsible projects, so recently born and already laid to rest-the plan to "liberate" peoples from the Elbe to the Sea of Japan and the naval blockade on China. The new management has had to acknowledge that glib opposition is one thing and the responsibility of power another.

The article comments on a difference of opinion about future relations between Japan and China. The British thought that this question had been settled last summer when in the course of negotiations on the Japanese treaty John Foster Dulles and former Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison reached an agreement to the effect that Japan was to be left free to decide whether it would recognize the Peking government or Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist regime or neither. Many Americans, will consider the British attitude selfish and immoral.

For several months rumors of impending negotiations for a peace treaty with Japan have clogged the air waves. Finally, on September 14, U.S. President Harry S. Truman himself announced that an effort would "again be made" to conclude a treaty and added that the State Department would "initiate informal discussion as to future procedure." It is doubtful whether the Japanese themselves would welcome a treaty which did not include the Russians and unless they welcomed it, they would not be much good as an ally. The fear of a Russian invasion, intensified by the initial American defeats, has created a demand not only for an independent Japanese army but for the grant of bases to the United States, with American troops stationed in Japan not as an occupying force but, say, as American air squadrons are stationed in England, London.

The author says that Japanese have always insisted that the Western nations do not understand the peculiar ways of the East, and that a system of world organization which might keep the peace in Europe and America would not work in the Orient. All Oriental peoples have suffered sufficiently from the white man's imperialism to distrust a system of world organization that appears to give white men continued domination. Fortunately Japan can be destroyed militarily without imposing fresh burdens on Japanese people.

This article discusses the matter related to international politics. The war with Japan is forty-eight hours old as one goes to press, and with operations ranging over a huge area it is not surprising that rumors should be more plentiful than confirmed news. Great Britain has declared war on Finland, Hungary, and Rumania following the rejection by the governments of these countries of demands that they cease from participation in Germany's war against Russia. Hungary and Rumania are so clearly and completely under German ruler Adolf Hitler's thumb and so isolated geographically from the "West that their negative answers were foregone conclusions. But there had been a faint hope that Finland retained enough independence and democratic spirit to make possible its withdrawal from the unnatural Nazi alliance.

When American and Japanese representatives signed the Washington Naval Limitation Treaty of 1921, the warmongers of their respective countries were disappointed. In the view of American naval men, the U.S., lacking naval bases in the western Pacific, would have little chance of winning a decisive victory in the Far East against a Japanese navy 60 per cent as strong as its own. Japan, with its smaller fleet and its distance from American outposts, saw that it was completely unable to take the initiative in American waters. If hostilities should break out, the two powers seemed destined to pass through a period of prolonged face-making across 7,000 miles of watery no man's land.

The basic fact that must now govern every decision made by the anti-fascist countries with reference to the Far East is that Japan is leading from weakness, not from strength. The change in the Tokyo Cabinet two weeks ago signified that Japan was threshing about in the hole it had dug for itself. By joining the Axis Japan mounted the tiger of European war diplomacy. Then it found itself afraid to stay on and afraid to get off. The Great Britain would not collapse. The United States would not conveniently move into the Atlantic, leaving the Pacific free for Japanese adventuring.

The program of giving England all aid short of war made a giant stride with the resignation of Joseph P. Kennedy as Ambassador to London, England. An ardent champion of appeasement at the time of the Munich pact, Kennedy has since shown somewhat less flexibility on the subject than was displayed by the late Neville Chamberlain. The $100,000,000 credit granted to China by the United States is an overwhelming answer, both diplomatic and practical, to Japan's recognition of its puppet Nanking regime.

The article presents discussions on various topics. Japanese air attacks on Burma road do not seem to have greatly affected its usefulness to China. Recent dispatches from Chungking tell of new anti-aircraft guns which apparently had just arrived via the Burma road. It is admitted that some bridges have been damaged by Japanese bombs, but the most strategic of these, the span across the Mekong gorge, is reported to have withstood numerous raids. Meanwhile, the Japanese drive through Indo-China has bogged down, and it is now intimated that the main Japanese attack will be delivered through Kwangsi.

The article presents an overview of the "February 24, 1940 issue of "The Nation." All signs indicate that the Far Eastern war is about to enter a new stage. The Japanese have officially announced that they will not expand their operations in the future, but will stay put and seek to hold their previous conquests. This represents a fundamental shift in Japanese policy. Heretofore, the Japanese have boasted that they would chase General Chiang Kai-shek to Tibet, if necessary. There was no place for an anti-Japanese government in the "new order for East Asia." Now, it seems, Chiang Kai-shek is to be allowed to continue to rule in the areas of "free China" at present governed from Chungking. A glance at the map shows that this is a considerable area.

The present phase of the Far Eastern war is marked by the incompatibility of two principles-- the Open Door and the New Order in Asia. In this conflict Japan does not have to face the armed resistance of Chinese soldiers. It has to turn around to face the violent reaction of Western powers, chiefly the U.S. and Great Britain, rallying in an eleventh-hour effort to save what is left of their positions in China. Despite Japanese assertions that the principle of a New Order does not necessarily conflict with foreign vested rights and privileges in China, the ideas behind this principle preclude a compromise.

After many months of meaningless prattle about dissuading China from its anti-Japanese attitude and freeing Asia from Communist influence, the Japanese government has at last shown its hand. No longer does it even suggest that Japan is in China to uphold its treaty rights. On the contrary, it has openly announced its defiance of the basic treaty covering Far Eastern relations. The Open Door, slammed shut some months ago in the territories under Japanese military control, is now to be officially bolted against the Western nations.

The article provides discussion on various topics. If Japan's growing economic difficulties have reduced popular enthusiasm for the war, no such news has passed the censor. The economic restraints placed upon Japan by the boycott are not of a sort calculated to create disaffection within Japan. There has been a sharp decline in Japan's military efficiency in recent weeks; and there has been a drastic reduction in Japan's purchases of strategic raw materials as a result of the boycott. It is only reasonable to believe that there is some connection between the two facts. If this is the case, China may yet win the war--provided that the boycott can be maintained and extended.

Results of the Moscow conference have spread consternation among those elements in Tokyo. While there's many a slip `twixt the communiqué' and its realization, these decisions have narrowed the Soviet Union-American rift and enhanced the possibility of developing popular regimes in Japan, Korea and China without destructive civil wars. Russians may differ with on the speed of Japan's political and economic delousing and on the best methods for achieving objectives already blocked out. In Korea however, there is a yawning gap to be bridged.

The article focuses on issues related to international relations. The landing of the Tenth Army on Okinawa, Japan, furnishes the most impressive evidence of the rapid growth of Allied power in the far Pacific. The ten days of pit-landing bombardment at Okinawa are apparently the result of the previous experience at Iwo Jima, which had only three days of pre-landing bombardment. The magnificence of military victory stands in sharp contrast with the sad state of political confusion among the major Allies.

The Japanese have long since surpassed the Nazis in the science of manipulating Quislings. They have established some form of collaborationist government. In sections of Asia occupied since 1937 the Japanese puppets are having more trouble. In November, six of the leading puppets or their representatives were summoned to Tokyo for a Greater East Asia Conference. But despite all Japan's efforts, its prestige has been steadily declining as a result of official arrogance, economic chaos in occupied Asia and Allied victories in the Pacific. The whole puppet show in eastern Asia, cleverly conceived as it was, is being disrupted by Japan's military defeats and its unkept promises.

It seems as if it could not be without some significance that Japanese writers in newspaper and magazine have been emphasizing the fact that Japan is in a critical position, "at the parting of the ways." The first writer to warn his countrymen was Marquis Komura, son of the late Marquis Kontura who achieved so much distinction as a diplomat. He contributed an article to a magazine entitled "Yuben" and made an appeal to the young men of Japan to face the important and critical moment in her history. He said that, in the midst of war prosperity, many were prone to neglect thinking seriously of the true position in which their country is now placed. He pointed out that "the backbone of Japan's foreign affairs" is the Asiatic question, which is centred in China.

This article focuses on various issues related to politics. The long deadlock between Japan and the U.S. upon the shipping question was two-edged, preventing Japan's full development of her yards for want of steel plates, and American use of Japanese-built ships in the submarine zone. Twenty steamers, aggregating 100,000 tons, are not much to obtain of a country which has well over 2,000,000 tons. Another dark conspiracy of the Washington Administration has been foiled. The plot to lynch General Leonard Wood was detected last week by some of the most eminent American newspaper sleuths.

The article focuses on the Japanese demonstration against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and also against the presence of the U.S. military bases in Japan. Thoughtful Japanese fear that sooner or later the Washington-Tokyo military alliance will directly ensnare Japan in a war with neighboring China. According to Edwin Reischauer, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, many Japanese look upon the security treaty with Washington as more a liability than a guarantee against aggression. In response to a rising public protest against the bombing of North Vietnam the Japanese Government decided to dispatch, on separate occasions, two peace emissaries to South-east Asia and other parts of the world to learn the truth about the Vietnamese War and world public opinion.