Japanese Involved in Grave Crisis To Decide Future Position Says Hideo Kishimoto--Militarist Faction Far Behind Times

"Japan is now in the midst of one of the greatest crisis of her existence since 1860, and the way in which she emerges from it will determine whether or not she will continue in her rapid march of industrial and political progress," said Hideo Kishimoto, instructor in Japanese, in an interview yesterday.

"Following the post-War depression in 1922, the Japanese earthquake served to prolong the period of want, so that Japan may be said to be suffering from a ten-year major industrial depression. The rapidly increasing population has continuously rendered the situation more acute, with the result that a spirit of pessimism and desperation has grown up throughout the nation. The disturbances in China during the last year are largely traceable to this feeling which characteristically must find an outlet.

"Owing to the retarding effect of petty battles between the two major Japanese political parties which are hardly more divergent than the Republicans and Democrats in the United States, almost all remedies for the situation possible through legislation have been held up. Herein lies the 'raison d'etre' of the militaristic movement; its supporters are men whose points of view are in most cases apparently behind the times, but who are aware of the necessity for a unified national front, political and economic, if Japan is to be prevented from falling back into its nineteenth century oblivion.

"The recent assassination of the prime minister Innkai, leader of the Conservative party, has raised an issue which will be the deciding factor, for the present, in determining the victor in the battle between the militarists and the politicians.

"If the militarists have their way, General Ugaki will be made a non-partisan premier to lead a united country, presumably out of its present difficulties."