266 J.-A. PEMBERTON
the potential to ‘weaken and even to destroy the nascent conceptions of
law’ that underpinned the current international order.^85
Having issued this warning, Sofronie struck a note of cautious opti-
mism, predicting that after the forthcoming ‘combat for peace’ against
those few nations who were engaged in what he referred to as the
‘final agitations’ or ‘final revolts’ against law, international solidarity
and a ‘more real reign of law’ would be reaffirmed.^86 Like his colleague
Antonescu, Sofronie stated that should the ‘crisis of the LON lead
implacably to its suppression,’ this experiment in international organisa-
tion at some point would have to be relaunched, albeit accompanied by
greater efforts to deepen, organise and diffuse the international spirit.^87
The discussion of university teaching in Prague bore witness to the
airing of Japanese grievances in regard to the current distribution of ter-
ritory. Retsu K. Kiyusawa, the editor of the Oriental Economist, drew
attention to the fact that Japan occupied only one per cent of the Asiatic
land in the region of the Pacific, observing that of the rest of this land,
seventy-three per cent and ‘more than half the population (excluding, of
course, the Chinese), forms the “burden” of the white man.’^88
Kiyusawa insisted that on learning this, a Japanese student of inter-
national relations would naturally ask, how can the problem of Japan’s
lack of land area be solved? The teacher’s response, he stated, could not
be that the Japanese are ‘free to settle and to produce in such regions
where, as in British New Guinea 1,000 whites are living, or in Dutch
New Guinea with a white population of 300, or in the whole mandated
territory of Australia with a population of barely 3,000 souls, whites and
Chinese reckoned together, or...in Alaska, a territory four times larger
than Japan with a population of 28,600. For all those territories are closed
to the Japanese.’^89 What the student would learn based on these consider-
ations, Kiyusawa declared, is that in international relations ‘the first action
(^85) George Sopronie, ‘The Teaching of International Law in Connection with the Study
of International Relations,’ in Zimmern, ed., The University Teaching of International
Relations, 63–4, and Zimmern, ed., The University Teaching of International Relations,
346.
(^86) Ibid., 64.
(^87) Antonesco, ‘The University Teaching of International Relations,’ 80.
(^88) ‘Fourth Study Meeting,’ in Zimmern, ed., The University Teaching of International
Relations, 306.
(^89) Ibid.