AMERICA AND THE EAST

After over three years of inactivity and only nominal participation in the war, Japan proposes a plan of co-operation with the Allies in a seizure of Russian supplies in Eastern Siberia about the sea-port of Vladivostok. Anger and disappointment in the Bolshevik attitude, and the seriousness of their complete collapse before the advancing Germans point to the immediate acceptance of the proposal. Yet from a broad point of view the desirability of such action is much to be doubted.

That Great Britain and France have given their sanction to this step is by this time certain. The attitude of the United States alone remains doubtful. No official statement has yet been issued by the State Department, but it is scarcely too much to say that our Government, if it does not actively oppose the measure, will at least refuse its assent. And this for very good reasons.

President Wilson has clearly presented the war aims of our nation. We desire no material advantage for our part. We are fighting for the very right of all peoples to decide the political fate of the territory they occupy. When the war is ended we can not have it said that we sanctioned the invasion of a second Belgium. We can only oppose a move which bears all the marks of selfish aggression and which impugns the honor of our purpose.

Moreover, in our foreign relations we must maintain a national integrity. An Eastern invasion of Russia, no matter how strong the call of necessity, would indeed involve a breach of faith. We have no quarrel with the Russian people. A Japanese army, at the most, could penetrate but a few of the many miles toward offering an active opposition to the Central Powers. A Japanese invasion could only be a blow in the dark at Russia, a nation convulsed in the enormity of its own problems, certainly not an enemy of the Allied cause.

When we consider all possible advantages accruing from an Eastern advance into Russia and balance them against the inevitable harm which must certainly be its result, we can find no just reason for an American approval of the step. The need of concentrating all our energies upon the Western Front, and the avoidance of steps which may lead to irreparable stains upon the sublimity of our cause must guide our nation in the consideration of this harmful and ill-timed proposal.