126 THREE YEARS OF CALM BEFORE THE STORM

he could not redeem the* pledges he had made to the Army and
resigned.

Furthermore, through public utterances and in the Diet, the voice
of public opinion revealed dismay at the size of the military budgets
and an inclination to blame the Army for the unnecessary and
dangerous state of agitation into which the nation as a whole had been
led. Business men and capitalists wished to be free to reap the profits
of the export boom.

During all these months Hirota worked steadily, and I believe
sincerely, to create a friendly basis upon which to deal with China,
Soviet Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. His hand was
manifest in an immediate toning down of anti-foreignism in the
press ; it was revealed in the renewed efforts to solve the current
problems between Japan and Soviet Russia one by one ; and it was
emphasized to me in conversation in which Hirota showed an eager-
ness to explore any possible avenue which would lead to an improve-
ment in American-Japanese relations. Certain people considered
him a genuine liberal and the strongest Foreign Minister since
Komura and Kato.

Nevertheless, many believe Hirota's moderation to be one of
manner and strategy rather than substance. Certainly no one could
have come into office last year unless he was pledged to support
Japan's continental adventure and unless he profoundly believed
in Japan's " mission to preserve the peace of East Asia." It is pre-
cisely here that we find a deep-rooted antithesis. The Japanese
Government is at present struggling to escape from the dangers of
international isolation and yet substantially every Japanese—in the
Government and out—-is determined that their nation must realize
its long-cherished ambition, hegemony over East Asia.

It is for this reason that the Japanese Government finds it difficult
to beg for the world's friendship with anything more tangible than
words. One cannot avoid the suspicion that at heart a great many
here—we might even say a majority—view the treaties and inter-
national commitments to which Japan is a party as just so many
obstacles in the path to empire. Of course there are reasonable-
minded elements, and the older statesmen, Saionji, Makino, and
others who influence the Throne, do not share these somewhat un-
scrupulous views without many reservations, but they are old men
and we cannot count on their restraining influence much longer. It
is simply that the nation, with the goal in sight, is reluctant to admit
that the period of consolidation, customary after each wave of Japanese
expansion, is now in the best interests of the country.

It immediately comes to mind that this incompatibility between
the desire of Hirota to win friends for Japan and the fundamental
ambitions of the nation has already been illustrated by the justly
famous " Amau Statement " of Japan's policy towards foreign assist-
ance to China* It has already .proved a source of great embarrass-
ment to Hirota's policy of friendship on the one hand, and yet, on