"Tiger! Tiger!"

The Great Powers represented at the Brussels Conference, while waiting last week for the Japanese Government to reply to the second invitation to join them in discussing the war in China (TIME, Nov. 15), were treated in the Belgian press to gratuitous coaching in Oriental psychology by the Japanese Ambassador to Belgium, Mr. Saburo Kurusu.

According to Ambassador Kurusu, even a second rebuff should not discourage the Conference from inviting Japan a third time. "When first the warning cry 'Tiger! Tiger!' is heard in an Indian village nobody pays any attention," explained the Ambassador. "The second time perhaps a few natives reach for their swords. But it is the third cry of 'Tiger! Tiger!' which arouses the village."

When the Japanese Government came through 48 hours later with Rebuff No. 2, refusing to send a delegation to Brussels and urging the Conference to face "realities" (see col. j), there was no stomach for courting a Rebuff No. 3 among the tea-drinking statesmen of the Great Powers.* The so-called "Big Three"--Their Excellencies Norman Davis of Washington, Anthony Eden of London and Yvon Delbos of Paris--decided to wind up the Conference at once if possible, joined in drafting for this purpose a resolution in which the Conference was to adopt toward Japan an attitude of purely verbal ostracism with these words: "It is clear that the Japanese concept of the issues and interests involved in the conflict under reference is vitally different from the concept of most other nations in 'he world."

His Excellency Maxim Litvinoff had already left for Moscow when Messrs Davis, Eden and Delbos brought in their windup-motion. Then up rose Chinese Delegate Dr. V. K. Wellington Koo. "Now that the door to conciliation and mediation has been slammed in your face by the latest reply from the Japanese Government," Koo told the Conference, "will you not decide to withhold supplies of war materials and credits to Japan and extend aid to China? It is, in our opinion, the most modest way in which you can fulfill your obligations of helping to check Japanese aggression and uphold treaties."

This Chinese appeal for action to uphold treaties was followed by floods of words from Davis, Eden & Delbos. Their speeches were so nearly identical as obviously to have been written with heads together. All said, and Ambassador Davis also quote President Roosevelt as saying, that the sanctity of treaties must be upheld, all completely ignored Dr. Koo's plea that it be upheld, none proposed any measure to uphold it. With Italy voting "no" and with Norway, Sweden and Denmark abstaining, the rest of the Conference voted to adopt the Davis-Eden-Delbos motion, and the Conference adjourned to Nov. 22. Mr. Eden, enraged because the British Cabinet had just gone over his head in deciding to send Lord Halifax to Berlin to confer with Hitler, (see p. 22), rushed back to London in the state of overexcitement which has put him to bed several times before at tense moments (TIME, April 15, 1935, et seq.), announced he had "gone to bed with a chill." Viscount Halifax's departure for Berlin was speeded up by one day, and the New York Times learned that "humiliated" Mr. Eden had "tried to resign" and was "on the verge of resignation again." U. S. women's clubs, which have been cabling Ambassador Davis plea after plea for "Peace," were exhorted by a French observer at Brussels to save their cable money, persuade "American Womanhood" to switch from silk to cotton stockings, thus bankrupt silk-raising Japan, save China.

*Candid camera shots at Brussels showed last week (see cut) that British Foreign Secretary Eden elevates his teacup so close to his face that it almost covers his nose, extends his fifth finger to the full; while Soviet Foreign Commissar Litvinoff keeps his cup nearly level, protrudes his lips toward it, bending his head and sucking in the tea. Long-reach cookie snatching, by delegates leaning across in front of other delegates who already had their cookies and kept standing close to the table, was also in order at Brussels.

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