THE SOVIET’S ROLE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 81, 30 December 1940, Page 2

THE SOVIET’S ROLE

Price For Pact Which Japan Desires TRANSFER OF FISHING AND OIL CONCESSIONS LONDON, December 19. The Soviet’s eventual role in the struggle which has still to be fought out in Europe continues to occupy the minds of all diplomats, specially as it is known in well-informed quarters that Japan is anxious to improve her relations with Russia. It is believed that Germany is urging Japan to pay the Soviet’s price for friendship, but, according to reliable sources, the Soviet’s price is exceedingly high. It is believed that if the price is as high as stated this can be interpreted to mean that Russia feels herself in a more secure position since the recent Knasa-Garman. ocmsnltaiiaiisL in which

the Soviet Foreign Minister, M. Molotov, and the German Foreign Minister, Herr von Ribbentrop, played most important parts. The Shanghai correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” states: “In Tokio I learned on good authority that Moscow is demanding a shockingly severe price for a pact of amity so earnestly desired by the Japanese.” The correspondent states that responsible Japanese, who should know, informed him that the basic Soviet demands were: First, the transfer to Russia of the valuable fishing concession held by Japan along the coast of eastern Siberia; and, secondly, the return to Russia of the Japanese oil concession in the Soviet half of Sakhalien Island. “It is doubtful,” he says, “if the Soviet could have suggested anything more difficult of Japanese acceptance than these terms. The Japanese prize their salmon fishing ground as an essential source of food and foreign exchange, and though Sakhalien produces only a fraction of Japan’s oil requirements, it is more important than ever now in the face of the threat of a complete American oil embargo. “Till recently, the Japanese were obtaining about 300,000 tons of oil a year from Sakhalien, but Soviet obstruction has reduced the output greatly within the past year. The Japanese are confident that, given a free hand, they could boost production to 1,000,000 tons a. year.”