JAPANESE POLICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1936, Page 9

JAPANESE POLICE

BRITISH SAILORS ILL TREATED

DEMAND FOR REPARATIONS

(British Official Wireless.!

(Received October 31, 11.50 a.m.)

RUGBY, October. 30,

Messages reaching London from Tokio regarding the recent incident at Keelung, Formosa, which occasioned the postponement of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Little's courtesy visit to Japanese waters, appear to show that the grounds of resentment aroused in Britahx.by this and similar cases are not properly appreciated. It is suggested, for example, that naval.'ratings who were taken to a Japanese police station on October 7 were drunk and that other sailors landed from a British ship have practised bilking or have been disorderly.

It happens that in the present instance full inquiry by the Commander-in-Cbief of the China Station has established that the three sailors were quite sober, but there is no objection in any responsible British quarter to full investigation by appropriate local authorities of charges of this character against British sailors or other British nationals and, where guilt is proved, the imposition of legal penalties. What the British Government has liad to have brought to the attention of the Japanese Government is the' ill-treatment to which the three ratings were subjected by the police. There is evidence that the men were fit and well when they were taken to the police station. They emerged bruised and covered in blood, and one of them had a fractured jaw. MANX SUCH INCIDENTS. This occurrence is merely the culmination of a large number of cases in the last two years in which Japanese police methods have been in question. Only last July vigorous protests had to be lodged in Tokio regarding torture of a British Indian merchant during detention at Hsinking, in Manchuria, and he was subsequently released without any charge being brought against him. Instances of brutal treatment of Chinese employees of British firms in Manchuria by Japanese police are constantly; coming to the knowledge, of the British authorities, and in at least one case a victim is known to have died. - The representations -which have been made to the Japanese Government regarding the Keelung incident have had for their object reparations to the three sailors for the injuries they suffered at the hands, of the Japanese police.