GOVERNMENT BY ASSASSINATION

A prominent authority on the Far East, when asked which of the correspondents writing on the Orient today was best, in his opinion, said, ""Hugh Byas"". This book would seem to bear out the claim, for no one could read it without realizing that here is a scholar speaking, a man who knows the historical and biographical background of Japan, thoroughly enough to reinterpret it from a fresh angle. This book should prove a valuable asset for students of the Orient. I question whether it will catch the imagination of the man in the street, for it is a thoughtful, objective, undramatic weighing of the elements that distinguish Japanese fascism from European. He traces the steps by which the ""feudal fire-eating Mr. Hyde had become the master of the suave and plausible Dr. Jekyll"". Through the personalities of some of the leaders, he shows the gradual assumption of power by the army, controlled by the young officers; he explains the growth of the patriotic societies, nurseries of fanatics; the growing affinity between patriotism and crime; the ideological debt to Nazi Germany; the place of the Emperor as man, figurehead, symbol, high priest. He concludes that there is no chance of revolution from within; that Japan must be shown conclusively that war does not pay, and driven out wherever she has taken hold; and that peace settlements must change the balance in the Far East.