RESTORE TRADE?

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 303, 23 December 1939, Page 9

RESTORE TRADE?

Jap. Intention To Reopen

Yangtse.

PESSIMISM CONTINUES

NEW YORK, December 22.

The Foreign Office spokesman iu Tokyo confidently predicts that the United States will reply before Christmas to Japan's notice of intention to reopen the Yangtse River, says the correspondent of the United Press. The Slianghai correspondent of the "New York Times" says evidence is multiplying that the proposed reopening is based on a genuine desire by .the Japanese to restore trade and to show that her previous promises were not empty words. Most of the exports of the region are foods and raw materials which may justifiably be claimed as essential to support the Japanese military forces on the Yangtse. However, in spite of professions of good faith, adds the correspondent, pessimism continues. Everybody remembers the promises and commitments made for two and a half years by the Foreign Office, which the military authorities would not permit to be implemented. It is feared that the plan to reopen the Yangtse is in the same category as the reopening of Tsingtao port to foreign trade, which proved meaningless and valueless to Americans and Europeans, as it was surrounded by license permit systems which hopelessly barred trade.