MATSUOKA’S MESSAGE TO EDEN

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 135, 4 March 1941, Page 7

MATSUOKA’S MESSAGE TO EDEN

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.)

(.Received March 3, 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, March 3. Reports to “The Times” from highest diplomatic sources in Berlin agree that vehement recriminations have occurred between Japan and Germany. Germany, it is reported, made energetic representations to Tokio after the Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr. Matsuoka, sent his message to the British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden, and stoutly reproached Mr. Matsuoka for his heedless act in exposing Axis plans and impairing the value of the Three-Power Pact as a weapon against the democracies.

Germany asserted that Mr. Matsuoka was evidently trying to make Japan a mere passive partner in the Axis and was employing every conceivable means to tranquillize the Anglo-Saxon nations with the object of keeping Japan out of the war. ' The office of the Nazi Foreign Minister, Herr von Ribbentrop, stigmatized Mr. Matsuoka as a cringing faint heart who feared Britain and also as a victim of strong Bolshevist psychosis. It alleged that Mr. Matsuoka was convinced that if the war did not end soon the Soviet would become the sole victor, sealing Japan’s doom. »

Mr. Matsuoka’s answers to Berlin are reported to have been more than forceful, ide declared that Germany would be well advised not to allow the war to spread too far and would profit most from Japanese non-belligerency. Japan would go no further than that. Any step beyond would be gravely harmful.

Mr. Matsuoka concluded that Germany certainly had no cause for satisfaction at the consequences of applying pressure to Italy to go to war. For his own part he was watching developments with the gravest misgivings. He could not conceive how the war could end victoriously if continued on the present lines.