JAPANESE NAVY SCANDALS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 67, 20 March 1914, Page 7

JAPANESE NAVY SCANDALS

DEATH OF THE INFORMER FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED. (By Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright.) TOKIO, 19th March. Some newspapers disbelieve that Yoshida committed suicide, and suspect foul play. * [It was reported yesterday that Yoshida, a Japanese employee in the Siemens-Schuckert Company's office, whose statements provided the basis of many arrests, committed suicide in gaol] N THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SCANDAL. The Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian on 21st January .wrote as follows : — "With reference to the allegations made by Carl Richter, who was yesterday condemned to two years' penal servitude on a charge of having stolen documents from the Tokio office of the electrical machinery manufacturers, Siemens-Schuckert, which, he _ declared, showed that the firm had bribed high Japanese officials, the firm to-day issued a statement dealing with Richter's assertion. They point out that, as is customary in countries outside Europe, aIJ,AJ-,heir naval business in Japan has oeen done through native agents, who are naturally paid a commission. The firm declare they have never paid commissions, direct or indirect, to officials of the Japanese Government. Immediately an attempt at blackmail was made the firm reported the matter to the Public Prosecutor and informed the Japanese Government. In connection with the above statement it may be mentioned that in the course of the ' trial the defence demanded the reading of the stolen letters, but the Court refused to allow this. The only document read was a letter written by the accused to Herr Wilhelm, acting director of Messrs. Siemens-Schuckert, and containing alleged quotations from the stolen correspondence. One of these quotations was taken from a letter sent from the Berlin head office to the Tokio branch in 1911, and ran as follows :—: — 'It was really criminal to conclude a commission agreement with Admiral Fugii in London when our old agreement with Admiral Iwasaki still exists and works faultlessly. What reason was there, then, _ for 'such a far-reaching agreement with Fugii as one of 5 per cent, on the ship to be built in England and 2{ per cent, on all other orders for the Japanese Navy?' Other quotations went on to show that Captain lde, then a member of the Japanese Naval Commission in London, criticised Siemens prices, and that in a letter regarding 'this the Tokio branch of the firm wrote : 'Any considerable reduction in prices is inadvisable. The orders are given in Tokio, and recent orders show that the firm's friends in the Ministry of Marine are working trustworthily. If lde continues to annoy us he must go. It will not be hard for us to manage it.' The letter goes oh to mention that another Japanese official, whose name is given, 'has a mission in London to find out what members of the Commission do not work for us and according to the wishes of our friends here, and to see that they are removed or rendered harmless.' It was stated at Messrs. Siemeiis-Schuckert's office, in reply to enquiries, that if there had been any bribery in Japan, it had been done without the knowledge of the German managers of the business."