Foreign News: Western World v. Japan

In Rome and in London statesmen of the West last week began jockeying toward that boycott of Japan for which, in their eyes, President Roosevelt gave the cue when he recognized Nippon's most implacable foe, the Soviet Union.

As the crack Italian liner Conte di Savoia neared Naples, bearing roly-poly Comrade Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff from his triumph in Washington, the Italian Press burst with significant unanimity into a "tune" evidently called by Benito Mussolini. From the toe of the Italian boot to its strap among the Alps, Italians read that "Japanese dumping has become a new Oriental peril."

According to the Fascist Press Japan, by "unfairly" reducing the value of her yen, has created a "destructive" cut-price situation which the U. S., Europe and Soviet Russia should meet by "economic sanctions" against Japan. Fascist editors strongly hinted that Il Duce aspires to lead the West in organizing such a policy.

Comrade Litvinoff landed at Naples with a shout: "Here we are! The trip from America was grand!" On the train to Rome he flipped through the Papal daily Osservatore Romano which headlined CANNIBALISM IN RUSSIA and asserted the Russian people's "disillusionment and utter disinclination to work under the Communist regime." In Rome the roly-poly Red was received in private audience by His Majesty King Vittorio Emanuele III and held a series of conferences with Premier Mussolini at which they secretly discussed disarmament and the Japanese trade menace before Comrade Litvinoff entrained for Moscowr.

Meanwhile in London the House of Commons rang with this declaration by President Walter Runciman of the British Board of Trade: "We are having considerable trouble with Japan as a competitor and so is the whole Western World. It may be necessary for the Western World to stand together in the common economic cause."

One after another M. P.'s from Britain's stricken manufacturing districts damned Japan for dumping, for forging British trademarks, for sweeping many a British cargo boat off Far Eastern seas by debased yen competition. To champion Japan uprose only one M. P., that doughty Gladstonian Liberal. Sir Herbert Samuel, who lately led 33 Orthodox ("Free Trade") Liberals across the House from the Government benches. In his first opposition speech, Sir Herbert confined himself to cotton. Japan's commercial advantage in that field, he said, results from a well organized cotton textile industry "with which slipshod British methods would be unable to compete under any circumstances." With an eye cocked on the debased U. S. dollar, Sir Herbert claimed that it is not yet far enough down to make U. S. raw cotton cheaper in England than Indian cotton. He urged British textile men to buy only Indian cotton.

Sweeping Sir Herbert aside, other M. P.s rose to picture the "menace" represented by Japan's 42% increase in exports of cotton piece goods in the past three years, during which time similar British exports have fallen 54%.