JAPAN: Policy & Rice Gruel

"There will be no war while I am in office," cocky Japanese Foreign Minister Koki Hirota recently told the Diet.

Last week Japan's impotent pacifist politicos timidly tried to use this as an opening against the dominant minority of Japanese jingoes. Asked Toshio Shimada, a Seiyukai (majority party) leader: "How does the Government reconcile the declaration of the Foreign Minister that there will be no war while he is in office with our present invasion of Inner Mongolia?"

Contemptuously the Foreign Minister deigned no reply. His pacifist declaration had been made for foreign...

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