FREEZING ORDERS

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 259, 29 July 1941, Page 7

FREEZING ORDERS

Degree Of Japanese Retaliation SHOCK FOR TOKIO LONDON, July 27. The Japanese Finance Ministry announced that the freezing order against United States assets will be eased as much as possible, depending upon the severity with which the United States applies her own freezing order against Japan.

It is still not clear whether the order applies to Britain. The Government statements do not mention specific measures against Britain, but the newspapers agree that British assets have been frozen.

The “New York Times” Tokio correspondent says the British assets will be automatically frozen when official notification of tire British action against Japan is received. President Roosevelt’s swift action shocked and surprised even the Japanese Government, which, though it had taken precautionary measures, had been rather hopefully relying on Mr. Matsuoka’s past assurances of America’s passivity and on the influence of American isolationists. Action by East Indies. The Netherlands East Indies Government today applied immediately effective sanctions against Japan, as the result of which all monetary and goods traffic with Japan is dependent upon special permits. This action suspends the recent agreement under which the yen was linked with the guilder and also the oil agreement by which Japan received 1,800,000 tons of petroleum products annually. Other vital products now unavailable to Japan include rubber, tin, vegetable fats and -quinine.

According to the Hsinking correspondent of the Domei news agency, it is officially announced that Manchukuo has frozen American and British assets.

Officials in Washington describe the freezing measure as the first of a series of retaliatory economic moves against Japan. Some Japanese circles in Shanghai believe that America’s action will prove a long step toward the severance of diplomatic relations between the two nations and also that it will inevitably speed up Japanese southward expansion through Thailand, because of the necessity for Japan to obtain raw materials.

The British Empire, the United States, and the Netherlands normally supplied Japan with 8G per cent, of her essential war materials. The actual seizure of Japanese ships in American ports is not authorized tinder the American order, but Japanese vessels will not be permitted to sail from American ports without permission from the Treasury. The American Department of Commerce estimates that the order will result in a trade loss to the United States of 50,000,000 dollars annually. The Office of Production Management lias ordered the freezing of all stocks of raw silk in the United States “to meet the threatened shortage due to unsettled conditions in the Far East.”

China has given warm support to the British and United States action in freezing Japanese assets. A Reuter message from Chungking this afternoon says that both Government’ and public services welcome the move as a definite abandonment of the appeasement policy toward Japan. A Government spokesman said he hoped that an embargo on oil shipments to Japan would be put into effect by the United States.

SHANGHAI INCIDENT

House-to-House Search By Japanese

SHANGHAI, July 27.

Numerous Europeans, Jewish refugees, and hundreds of Chinese civilians were mirn-handled by Japanese marines during a 12-hour reign of terror in the Hongkew section following the fatal shooting of a Japanese naval officer in the Japanese-occupied part of the international settlement supposedly by a Chinese gunman. The Japanese searched the district house by house, ousting the occupants and forcing them to stand all night in the rain. Thousands of people of both sexes and all nationalities were roughly searched by the. Japanese marines.