Japan's New Order appeared in 1942. It is an attempt to explain the traumatizing recent military victories of Japan. What is Japan like? Godwin asks. How do her people think and how did they come to think this way? Japan's New Order is only 32 pages long but it covers substantial ground for its size: the origins of Japan's mythology of racial superiority, the influence of Shintoism, the medieval cult of the Samurai, the influence of the Dutch in the 1600s, the emulation of the Bismarckian Chancellor model in government, to mention only a fewJ As llsual in his many wide-ranging books (The Future of Canada; The Future ofCrime; Vancouver (i.e .Captain George Vancouver), a Life; The Great Mystics; Marconi, etc.) Godwin excels at bringing to light important sources which most readers might be unaware of. Perhaps chief of these is what Godwin calls 'the Japanese Mein Kampf') viz., the 1927 Memorial of General Tanaka to the Japanese Emperor. Here is a sample: "In the future, if we want to control China, we must fITst crush the United States; we must first crush the United States just as in the past we had to fight the Russo-Japanese War. But in order to conquer China, we must conquer Manchuria and Mongolia. In order to conquer the world, we must first conquer China. ( ... ) etc." (p. 24). In this reader's opinion the first page (po 3) is a model of eloquent, imaginative historical writing. The final page raises an interesting question: what will happen if Germany and Japan succeed in conquering the world? APAN'S NEW ORDER By GEORGE GODWIN No. 23 THE MODERN WORLD There are many difficult problems facing thoughtful people at the present day-problems of which their fathers and grand­ fathers knew nothing. Emotionally minded ~~:~~~~~ folk often ~ry to solve ~he~ modern problems OF OUR by appealing to the llTational feelings that TROUBLES? ~ometim~s surg~ up within most o~ us. Yet, If we thmk things over calmly, It becomes obvious that what is needed in this twentieth century of our era is not more unrestrained emotion but more quiet reasonable­ ness. Wars, revolutions, and violent changes are fundamentally irrational processes, and if we want to help in creating a new world order free from these upheavals we must cultivate the arts of reason. The Rationalist Press Association is an organization which exists for such a purpose. During the forty years of its exist­ ence it has printed and sold more than four million cheap reprints of the works of the great constructive thinkers, besides hundreds of thousands of copies of new works on Science, History, Philosophy, and Biblical Criticism. The Thinker's Library is a recent series which has achieved great popUlarity. In it are included works by Aldous Huxley, H. G. Wells, J. B. S. Haldane, Havelock GREAT Ellis, John Langdon-Davies, Sir J. G. Frazer, BOOKS BY Lord Morley, Prof. A. Einstein, Bertrand GREAT Russell, Dr. Julian Huxley, etc. Current WRITERS matters of interest are dealt with in the un­ official monthly organ of the Association, The Literary Guide, and also in The Rationalist Annual, published every October. The R.P.A. is not, however, satisfied with what it has done. It believes that only by continual emphasis on the value of human reason can the world be brought to MUCH WORK sanity. More than ever, therefore, is it STILL TO BE DONE necessary that all who share this belief should become members of the Rationalist Press Association and induce others to do likewise. If you are in sympathy with the aims of the R.P.A. and appreciate the work it has done, and if you are wishful of assisting it to do better work in future, you should fill in the Membership Form on the third page of this cover. Requests for further information should be addressed to: The Secretary, Rationalist Press Asso­ ciation Ltd., 5 & 6 Johnsoo's Court, Fleet St., London, E.CA. JAPAN'S NEW ORDER By GEORGE GOpWIN LONDON: WATTS & CO., 5 & 6 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C-4 First published 1942 THE THINKER'S FORUM I. THE GOD OF WAR By joseph McCabe. 2. THE DANGER OF BEING AN ATHEIST. By A. Gowans Whyte. 3. TURKEY: THE MODERN MIRACLE. By E. W .•F. Tomlin. 4. SCIENCE-CURSE OR BLESSING? By Prof. H. Levy. 5. MAKE YOUR OWN RELIGION. • By A. Gowans vVhyte. 6. A YOUNG MAN'S MORALS. By Henry Ll. Cribb . 7. WHY BE MORAL? By Hector Hawton. 8. THE GIDDY GOD OF LUCK. By Protonius. 9. THE ART OF ASTROLOGY. By Gemini. 10. PRIEST OR PHYSICIAN? By George Godwin. II. AFTER WAR-PEACE. By C. Delisle Burns. 12. THE CRISIS IN THE CHURCH. By Clericus. 13. DO WE WANT LIFE AFTER DEATH? By Arthur Ponsonby. 14. THE NAZI ATTACK ON INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE. By joseph Needham, Sc.D., F.R.S. 15. THE BODY AS A GUIDE TO POLITICS. By Dr . W. B. Cannon. 16.. RUSSIA AND THE ROMAN CHURCH. By joseph McCabe. 17. THE VATICAN AND THE NAZIS. By joseph McCabe. 18. THE POPE AND THE ITALIAN. JACKAL. _ By joseph McCabe. 19. SCIENCE AND HUMAN PROSPECTS. By Prof. Eliot Blackwelder. 20. WARS OF IDEAS. By Muriel jaeger. 21. B.B-C. RELIGION. By Clericus. 22. THE RIDDLE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND A NEW SOLUTION. By Adam Gowans Whyte, B.Sc. Printed and Published in Great Britain for the Rationalist Press Association Limited by C. A. Watts & Co. Limited, 5 & 6 J ohnson's Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C·4, England. (f JAPAN'S NEW ORDER EASTERN "HERRENVOLK" WAR with Gennany has for the British the familiarity of an old quarrel resumed with a well-known antagonist; but war with Japan has the element of apprehension which belongs to the unknown. We know, for example, how Germany conducts war. We know, on the authority of the International Red Cross, that, broadly speaking, even Nazi Germany adheres to the Geneva Convention and does not murder men taken in battle. But already we know that for Japan total war means total barbarity, including the massacre of prisoners of war and the rape of women cap­ tured with the fall of cities. Ethnologically, geographically, and culturally we are close to the Gennan enemy; but in each of these respects the Japanese are our dissimilar. In times of peace a British subject visiting Frankfurt for the Goethe Plays, or Bayreuth for the Wagner Musical Festival, feels no stranger than a man may do who visits blood relations. The scene, daily life, customs, speech-each reveals something of cultural or linguistic affiliations. He feels comfortable and at home. But the Englishman who witnesses the austere N6 Plays,. or watches the ceremonial of the Shrine of Ise, knows him­ self to be a stranger in a strange land, but no more a stranger than the German tourist at his side. The scene, often of exotic beauty; the daily life and customs, the precisely­ ordered formalism that touches all intercourse: these things reveal cultural origins remote from and alien to his own. The truth is that for most Europeans the real Japan has been remote as the mountains of the moon. This state of ignorance regarding one of the half-dozen most powerful States in the world has been brought about by two factors. First, the policy of Japan herself, who for nearly two and a half centuries severed all intercourse with the" Barbarians from the South"; secondly, the falsification which has characterized most writings by Europeans about Japan and the Japanese. These have given to plum and cherry 3 4 JAPAN'S NEW ORDER blossom, the tea ceremonial, the charm' of Japanese women, and the courtesy general throughout the country such prominence that the cult of the lie and double-dealing as an accepted technique for business and diplomatic purposes, the institution of child slavery through filial piety, and the complete absence of male restraint have been overlooked. That traditional expert witness to human folly, the Visitor from Mars, calling on our Earth Home to-day, would probably be baffled by the incongruities of the racial line-up, and might jot down something like this: "In the vast conflict now embroiling homo sapiens on Planet Earth the strangest feature is the racial incongruity of the allied nations of the two vast warring halves. For these are not aligned according to the logic of race, language, geographical distribution, or even to discernible material interests. On the contrary, vVhite and Yellow are unnatural allies against Yellow and White." Our Martian would, no doubt, say a great deal about beings who, in possession of a fertile planet, and having evolved to a stage of development at which the intellectual apparatus makes possible prodigious production of services and goods-universal wealth-pursue endemically the suicidal folly of fratricidal wars and, whenever the necessity for con­ ference and understanding arises, plunge perpetually into bloody battle. Now the revelation of Japan's armed might, the ferocity of her suddenly-launched aggression, and the series of dramatic conquests that have followed so swiftly have jolted the people of the Western world into the uncomfort­ able awareness that in Asia they are at war with a major Dictator State. To the layman it was unthinkable that a Power which could make no real conquest of China after four years of war could go through the strong defences of the British Empire in the East like a knife through ration cheese; yet it has come to pass. There may be many reasons for this, but common sense suggests that we should acquire some knowledge of the Japanese, and that we sh011ld appreciate the nature of the New Order that is their declared war objective .