- Look at Sources 7 and 8. What criticisms are the cartoonists making of Japan and the League?
Source 7:
From the source 7 we can see a long, big boy lying on the ground and his cloth seems quite poor and his name is ‘League’. The smallest person who’s standing on the ‘League’, wearing an army cloth is called ‘Japan’. From his shape and the way of standing we can see he’s very self-confident. The Britain might be the person that is trying to find something from the League’s face and the last person here is the fat old man who’s holding flowers and making a bow for the league. And he might be France.
The source 7 tells us the position of the League. The League seems really big, but it’s very weak. The Japan is the smallest but is the most powerful one, because he can even stand on the League. But even he’s standing on the league, France and Britain won’t do anything against it either, because they are not able to force him to get down from the league’s body, they are too weak too. The France seems that he obeys what league says and even making a bow for him and has flower for him while he’ll come, which means friendship. The Britain down there trying to find something on the league’s face is doing its best. He’s trying to look through every single ostium on his skin, just if he can find anything, but nothing. The self-confident Japan is walking through the stage up to the league’s body and then is entering the room called ‘Geneva’, but France has nothing against it.
So from this source we can see clearly how weak is the league towards Japan.
Source 8:
From the source 8 we can see a Japanese standing over amounts of corps of Chinese and Japanese people. His sword is still there holding tightly in his hand, the way how he’s standing seems very self-confident and insensibly and also selfish. His terrible smile seems like telling other people how powerful he is, that he can kill as many people as he wants. He’s standing at the top of all the corps to show that he’s the best, the tallest, the one who has the biggest power.
The source 8 tells us that Japan think he’s the best, the one who’s got the biggest power, who can control the other people’s life. That if anybody will try to fight with him, or to stand on him, the finale will be – death! And it’s as same as for the league that nobody can stop him to do the thing that he’s trying to do!!!
- Did the league fail in this incident because of the way it worked or because of the attitude of its members?
I think it’s because of both of them, because if the members do not want to do something then it is straightly linked with the works that they are going to do.
The league is POWERLESS. This is the main reason why the league couldn’t successes in many of way. To solve the problem of Manchuria we need power and the strength to be against Japanese. The only possibility to be against Japan is when USA or the USSR will be included in the League, because they are very powerful, but no one of them was in the League. Britain and France didn’t want to risk their navies or armies in a war with Japan, because they thought they wouldn’t be able to win. And also Britain seemed more interested in keeping up good relationships with Japan than in agreeing to sanctions. There were all sorts of excuses offered for the failure of the League.
The League made a decision about the Manchuria that Japan has to return the Manchuria to China, but as the Japanese’s power is much greater than the League, so Japanese didn’t agree and just did what ever they wanted. The members of the League did want to help China, but they were too frightened that they actually didn’t do anything, so the result of the League was actually zero, as same as there’s no League at all.