PEACE TREATY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 140, 10 March 1941, Page 8

PEACE TREATY

Expected To Be Signed

Yesterday

INDO-CHINA DISPUTE

Some Doubt, However, Still

Remains

(By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.)

(Received March 9, 7 p.m.)

NEW YORK, March 8.

A peace treaty settling the Indo-China-Thailand dispute will be signed provisionally tomorrow, according to a Tokio message. A Hanoi message, however, states that, despite reports to this effect, officials tonight maintained reserve, indicating a belief that peace is not yet fully assured. An informed source in Tokio says that the French have probably saved virtually all the rich province of Cambodia by offering Thailand a corridor to the Chinese frontier in the north instead. The Japanese favoured the corridor for military reasons, therefore persuaded Thailand to accept it in place of the Cambodia rice districts, which Thailand coveted. It is reported that the French have agreed to give up a thin strip in western Cambodia and sections in the Laos province, west of the Mekong River. The Saigon correspondent of the Associated Press of America reports that authoritative quarters there said today that one of the principal points at stake in the negotiations was the proposed establishment of a new borderline through the rich Cambodia province. This, they said, was far more important to the Indo-Chinese than the slice of Laos asked by the Thailanders, since the Laos area consisted mainly of unprospected and mountainous jungle. The Cambodia section, near the Thai border, which Thailand wanted, contains about 1,000,000 inhabitants, 300 of them French. The area contains rice corn, pepper and rubber plantations, valued at many hundreds of thousands of dollars, together with a sapphire mine near Palin. The spokesman for the Cabinet Information Bureau, Mr. Ishii, said earlier that agreement had been reached on the main points of the Japanese plan. Asked if he thought the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Hull, would like the fact that negotiations had been settled, Mr. Ishii said: “I think so. Mr. Hull likes peace.” Commercial Relations.

The "Nielli Nichi Shimbun” predicted a transition in commercial and economic relations between Japan and Thailand. It believed that Japan was conducting economic negotiations with Thailand simultaneously with the trade talks between Japan and IndoChina. .

The paper said that Thailand was at present struggling to promote “a racial principle aiming at economic stabilization through the medium of the restoration of commercial rights to former Chinese merchants and the removal of monopolistic burdens in finance and tin-mining under the pressure of British capital. For the execution of these activities Thailand cannot but depend upon Japan for support.” “Nichi Nichi Shimbun'” commenting on a Hanoi report that the United States is freezing the Indo-China Bank's funds said: “Japan cannot ignore such outrageous action aiming to restrain Indo-China in the last stage of the peace parley.” “Yomiuri Shimbun” ran a headline: “Evil hand obstructing Japan-Indo-China co-operation.” Commenting on the Japanese outcry a Treasury official in Washington pointed out that French Indo-Chinese credits were frozen last June, together with all the funds of French colonies. The Thai Minister to Germany was received by Herr von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, on Friday.