DANGER TO CHINA

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 42, 19 February 1935, Page 9

DANGER TO CHINA

JAPANESE AMBITION

VEILED ANNEXATION

MANCHUKUO ON VAST SCALE

LORD. LOTHIAN'S LETTER

Onited Press Association—By Electric Telecraph—Copyright. ("Times" Cables.) (Received February 19, 11 a.m.)' LONDON, February 18." Japan hopes to face - the world with a fait accompli in China, analigous to Manchukuo, at the expiry of two years' notice of denunciation of the Washington Treaty," say 3 Lord Lothian in a letter to "The limes." He adds: "Japan is tearing up the Washington Treaties and nullifying the integrity of the China open door under the Nine-Power Treaty. China does not want Japan Jo absorb, her; she wants to stand on her own legs without foreign control. The British Empire, the United States, France, and Russia can more effectively help her than the Japanese: I urge Britain, without awaitthe arrival of the Empire 'Prime Ministers, to mobilise the other .Nine-Power signatories to decide whether Japan shall be allowed to' repeat in China "on a gigantic scale the whole policy of veiled annexation already carried out in Manchukuo." FOREIGN OFFICE OPINION. The Foreign Office says that it is watching the position closely. A meeting of the signatories of the Nine-PoweA Treaty is at present not contemplated. The authorities admit that the situation is interesting, but there is a tendency to regard Lord Lothian as slightly pessimis-. tic. The dispatches' which have so far reached Whitehall in connection with the Sino-Japanese conversations do not carry the position as far as Lord Lothian suggests. Nevertheless Britain clearly shares General Smuts s and Lord Lothian's belief that the situation in the Pacific is beconnng dangerous. The. Japanese are nouting the open door, but British policy in the Far East is most indefinite. There is the strongest desire to retain Japanese friendship, but simultaneously there is a realisation that Japanese activities challenge all Western interests. «£i° rdi, Lothian was formerly Mr. P, hlll P Story Kerr, CX, M.A. Heis : the eldest son of the late Major-Gerferal Lord Ralph Kerr, and succeeded his cousin as Earl of Lothian ia 1930. ISaddition to being Marquess of Lothian, he holds the title of Earl of Ancnmt lour baronies,: and a viscountcy He was educated at Oxford, and later was Assistant Secretary of the Intercolonial Councn of the Transvaal arid Oranga River Colony arid bf the, Railway; Con> mittee of Central South African Rail•ways. In 190$ at the age of 26, he became editor of "The State" in South Africa, and from 1910 to 1916 he edited the "Round Table.". In 1916 he became Secretary to the Prime Minister, a post he held for five years, arid in 1925 was appointed Secretary to the Rhodes Trust. : In 1931 he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and in. 1931-32 acted as Parliamentary ;Under-Secre-tary to the India Office. He was chairman of (the Indiari Franchise' Committee of 1932 and of the International Commission on Manchukuo sent out by the League of Nations. • :.