The importance of the present crisis in the Far East is not only due to the serious consequences likely to follow as a result of it for Japan and China, and incidentally for the other countries interested there. It is important also because it is the first occasion on which the League of Nations and other post-war methods of preventing war have been put to the test. For this reason I propose to discuss only incidentally the quarrel between Japan and China and to devote most of my attention to the position of the League and its members, as well as of the United States and Russia, in the struggle; and as this may best be done in the light of our own British and Canadian position and policy I propose to deal first with them.