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Meanwhile Japan also turned on the U. S., reacting violently from its soft answers to Ambassador Joseph Clark Crew's dressing-down of last month. Mr. Tetsuma Hashimoto, president of a one-man patriotic society called the Purple Cloud, bought five columns in the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri to call the U. S. "a pampered millionaire who dabbles in charity without having known suffering." In one of Japan's fishy journalistic coincidences, three important papers all poked fun at the U. S. on the same morning. The Foreign Office spokesman said that Japan will not remain indifferent if the U. S. expands her naval expenditures. Japan's Washington Embassy published a list of settlements of U. S. claims against Japan, as if to disprove Ambassador Crew's charges. Number of claims announced as settled: six. Number of claims outstanding: over 500.
Japan cannot exert pressure on Western Powers in the South Seas until they stop pressing her in North China. This week the British delighted Japan by announcing imminent withdrawal of British troops from North China, on the flimsy pretext that they are needed in Europe. The British force, which has been a whole lot of cold water on the hot Japanese garrison at Tientsin, will be only a tiny drop in the B. E. F. bucket: 700 men.
*Not to be confused with the Institute of Pacific Relations, an international, genuinely liberal research organization with headquarters in Manhattan. Its Pacific refers to both peace and the Ocean.