Guardian Features Article on Today's Germany; Defense of Japanese Policy

With an eye to the varies headlines of the day, the editors of the Harvard Guardian have chosen for their April issue a remarkably wide range of articles on current questions. For those who prefer foreign affairs for their monthly reading, the Guardian offers a defense of Japan, a study of a contemporary German village, and a paper on the diplomatic background of the World War. For those who would save America first, the Guardian presents a discussion of public spending, a consideration of careers in the public service, and a resume of the recent United States Housing Authority report.

Probably for many readers the most interesting item on this varied bill of fare will be the apologia for Japan offered by Mr. Yakichiro Suma of the Japanese Embassy in Washington. Mr. Suma presents a defense which is at once a cleverly wrought argument and an interesting indication of the official Japanese attitude.

Axes to Grind

The obvious flaw in Mr. Suma's thesis is his careful avoidance of the basic question of the morality of one nation forcibly jamming its desires down the throat of a weaker neighbor. Then again, while he builds up an effective indictment against the Chinese for their part in hastening the outbreak of the present hostilities, Mr. Suma says nothing concerning the earlier conquest of Manchuria and North China.

Unlike Mr. Suma, Professor Zimmerman of the Sociology Department has no axe to grind in his article "A German Village of Today." Professor Zimmerman has been making a study of the ancient German hamlet of Klein Leugden, and he attempts here to reach a fair conclusion as to the effects of Nazi legislation on the lives of this small group of German villagers.

Report of Dunster Forum

Especial praise should be given Messrs. Bernstein and Fels for their attempt to report the recent Dunster House forum on public spending. In view of the intricacy of the subject and the diversity of the views expressed at the meeting, Messrs. Bernstein and Fels have done a fairly creditable job. The chief criticism to make of their report in the confusing way in which the two writers keep shifting back and forth between straight narrative and editorial comment, so that the reader never knows when to expect the words of Sweezy, Harris, or Gilbert, and when mere back-seat driving by the rapporteurs.

In the remaining articles, the editors of the Guardian have done the members of the graduating class a service by publishing Dewayne Kreager's straightforward, clearcut discussion of the job possibilities offered by the Federal government field services. The editors have done a further service by printing Christian Lauritzen's prize-winning essay on "England's Moral Obligation" to France in 1914. When a student produces as good a Sophomore thesis as this, it is pleasing to see it win the recognition of publication