Waver Week

Japan's little Premier, Nobuyuki Abe, is a definition of inconsistency. His breakfast begins by being Japanese (bean soup, pickled eggplant, rice) and ends Occidentally (soft-boiled eggs, a glass of milk). His house (suburban, neither big nor small) is typically that of a Japanese military man, but is cluttered by a very unmilitary hobby--scores of canaries and red sparrows in pretty cages. Premier Abe drinks a little but not much, smokes a little but not much, exercises a little but not much. He is a general, but he has never been to war.

Month ago Japan's senior statesmen drew this indecisive character--"blinking," as the Japanese say, "like a bull drawn into the sunlight from a dark stall"--out into the open to be Premier. He had an awful time making up his mind about a Cabinet; it took him 29 1/2 hours, cost him 2,047 yen for 590 bottles of beer, three barrels of sake, 780 bottles of soft drinks, 910 box lunches, ten strings of dried cuttlefish and six telephones--all but the telephones consumed during conferences by eager candidates, hangers-on, advisers.

This very quality of indecision was just the reason why Nobuyuki Abe was chosen: he would be pliable. But those who chose him did not realize that under him the whole Government would degenerate into machinery for vacillation. Since U. S. Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew gave Japan a piece of the U. S. mind on Oct. 19, the Japanese have wavered worse than before.

First they said they appreciated Mr. Grew's sincerity. Then they contradicted his points. Premier Abe talked with Foreign Minister Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura and it was announced that conversations would be held with the Ambassador. Then the Army talked with Premier Abe and it was announced that they would not. Foreign Minister Nomura would talk with Ambassador Grew privately, informally. No, the Foreign Minister was "too busy"; he would not. Last week he did.

By this time the U. S. had become infected with inconsistency. First reports said that during their talk Ambassador Grew had threatened economic pressure if Japan did not change her policy in China. Second (official) reports said he had not made any threat.

When all this had simmered down to a broth of truth, something like this remained: The Japanese were greatly impressed by Ambassador Grew's speech. The Government wanted to do something about it at once. But the Army (which usually prevails) wanted first to install Puppet-elect Wang Ching-wei in China--accomplish the New Order, and then discuss it. Every Ambassador pays a routine call on a new Foreign Minister; hence last week's conversation. The talk was entirely friendly, and there was no threat. But Ambassador Grew again made clear the nature of U. S. complaints and the temper of the U. S. public. And another thing he made perfectly clear was that there is some talk in the U. S. that when the abrogated Trade Treaty of 1911 lapses in January, it might be followed not by a new treaty, but by an embargo. To tell a Japanese that Americans do not like to fight Japan's war for them is not to threaten him.

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