ABSTRACT
FOREIGN observers of the political expansion which has taken place during the crisis years, and of the costly concentration of the national energies on the provision of military equipment, can be divided into two groups. There are those who say that the country has been steadily ruined for its greater glory. They see the economic and political purposes of the nation as in fundamental opposition; they say that political ideals have triumphed throughout the crisis years at the expense of the nation’s economic interest. The other view is that both political and economic aims have been pursued in co-operation; that the political expansion has prepared for, and in some cases consolidated, economic gains; and the implication is that the attempted advance of Japan has been one on all fronts directed by some politico-economico-military general staff.
