PEACE PREPARATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 89, 12 October 1937, Page 9

PEACE PREPARATIONS

APPARENT IN TOKIO

STATE ADVISORY COUNCIL

APPROVED

OBJECTIVE IN NORTH CHINA SUBSTANTIALLY ATTAINED

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received October 12, 1 p.m.) LONDON, October 11. The Tokio correspondent of "The Times" states that the beginning of Japanese preparations for peace are apparent in the fact that a new State Advisory Council has been approved by Cabinet. It will consist of ten members, of whom four will be from the army and the navy, three will represent politicians, two finance and business, and one the diplomatists. Japan, the correspondent states, has always had to face violent nationalist agitation when coming to terms of peace. It is probable that since both the Government and the army have declared they will be satisfied with a lenient peace in China, the Prime Minister, Prince Ivonoyc, desires to place responsibility for peace on men whose nationalism is imimpcachable, and hence the new Council, which is also designed to end the strife between the totalitarian' and Parliamentarians' Councils, will be merely advisory and the supremacy of Cabinet preserved, but as it will be appointed by the Emperor it will exercise a genuine influence on policy.

The citf-respondent adds that Count Terauchi's victory in North China means that the army has substantially attained its objective, the destruction of the Chinese armies as a fighting force in North China. There is little likelihood that he will be able to make a stand in Shuntefu. The Chinese strategy of resisting and retreating js wearing thin. The Chinese "forces have offered little resistance to Count Terauchi's advance diiring the past few days. The overloaded troop trains which are carrying the retreating Chinese south are furnishing targets for the Japanese airmen.