JAPANESE CABINET

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 10

JAPANESE CABINET

MINISTER RESIGNS

AFFAIRS IN CHINA

QUESTION OF CONTROL

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received September 30, 1.10 p.m.) TOKIO, September 29. It is learned authoritatively that the Foreign Minister, General Ugaki, has resigned. General Ugaki's resignation was the result of a dispute between the army and the Foreign Office concerning the authority and functions of the projected central bureau for handling Japan's affairs in China. The Foreign : Office considers that the bureau, as designed by the army, will seriously impinge on the diplomatic field. Prince Konoye will temporarily combine the portfolio of Foreign Affairs with the Premiership. The Parliamentary Vice-Foreign Minister; Mr. Tadap Matsumoto, the Parliamentary Foreign Office Counsellor, Mr. Shigeaki Haruna, and two diplomatic advisers have also resigned. The Government's policy is unchanged. General Ugaki was formerly Governor of Chosen (Korea) and in the nationalistic army officers he is a moderate verging on liberalism. In January, 1937, he was commanded to form a Cabinet. He has been particularly close to the Emperor. Before Hirohito inherited the throne he was Counsellor to the Crown Prince, and he was formerly Chief of Military Affairs at the War Office and Chief of General Affairs at the General Staff. Office. His effort to form a Cabinet in January, 1937, was short-lived because of refusal of the army to allow him to obtain a Minister of War, and General Hayashi -therefore formed a new Cabinet. General Ugaki was admitted to the post of Foreign Minister in place of Koki Hirota last Ma^,- ---| and the present move would appear to be a renewal of the army feud with this "liberal," as well as an offshoot of the situation which has previously existed in China, where the generals have been held to decide lines of action for themselves without "much reference to the Government.