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By this time Japan's new Ambassador to China, belligerent Mr. Hachiro Arita, who had arrived on a Japanese warboat cleared for action, was behaving so brashly on presenting his credentials that a peep of protest was emitted even by China's Nanking Government. Peeped a Chinese
Government official, after asking that his name be kept secret: "The Japanese Ambassador is saying things which are displeasing to the Chinese People and to the Chinese Government." Not in years had a high Chinese Government official ventured to utter for publication such bold words.
Hiranuma, A final sign that the Army assassinations and insurgence at Tokyo three weeks ago was triumphantly achieving its ends came last week when the Privy Council of His Majesty was vacated by its President, the great Japanese Liberal Kitokuro Ikki, who knew what was good for him and resigned "on account of failing health." The Son of Heaven accepted this resignation, then appointed as President of the Privy Council notorious Baron Hiranuma.
This parvenu peer, a self-made Japanese of intolerant and overbearing stamp, got his start as a prosecutor of red-light Yoshiwara cases involving Government corruption. The nervous Japanese temperament is peculiarly non-resistant to adroit blackmail. Today among Japanese it is said and believed of Baron Hiranuma that he never blackmailed anyone but has built up dossiers from the contents of which he could sway numberless Japanese of consequence and wealth.
The career of this non-blackmailer was starred with slow but imposing promotions. In 1906 he became Director of the Civil & Criminal Affairs Bureau; in 1923, Minister of Justice; and in 1926 was received into the Peerage. Since Japanese law is remarkably vague on many points, and responsible officials virtually "make laws" by their rulings and interpretations, it was possible for Baron Hiranuma to pass out of judicial life with a nationwide reputation for extreme tightening up of Japanese legal severity. .
Ruthless, tight-lipped and vastly cunning, Baron Hiranuma, self-made but blooded with the Army's authentic samurai strain, was the Army's candidate in 1932 for the Privy Council Presidency into which he strode last week, camping at the ear of the Son of Heaven. The Army could feel that at last His Majesty would no longer receive only the moderate councils of mild Japanese elders like famed Prince Saionji, the Last of the Genro. Of Baron Hiranuma it is said that "naturally he can have no friends" but that for years he has been locked in a close understanding with famed General Sadao Araki, Militarist Extraordinary.
Reds-Although last month's assassinations and insurrections were entirely the work of young Army mustards in uniform, Tokyo police last week arrested 150 civilian conspirators, a number of them onetime Army officers, jugged three Japanese employed by the Soviet Embassy as "spies" and seemed to be getting ready for a great dishing of Red herrings.
Meanwhile Manchukuo police seized a Russian named Pirogov at Harbin. In enthusiastic efforts to make him sign a confession as a spy, they jabbed pencils in his nostrils, poured him full of kerosene. His sturdy constitution standing him in good stead, Russian Pirogov signed nothing, was released.