MEDIATION OFFER

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 79, 1 October 1945, Page 7

MEDIATION OFFER

JAPANESE GENERAL

Rec. 11.15 a.m. SAIGON, Sept. 28. Lieut-General Numata said he was willing to act as intermediary between the British and French forces and the Annamese. He has ordered Japanese staff officers in Hanoi to maintain contact with the Viet Nam Government there, in the hope of arranging a conference of British, French, Japanese, and Annamese leaders.

"The spectacle of the Japanese suggesting mediation is certainly odd," says the "New York Herald Tribune" correspondent at Saigon, "but the Allies' bungling and timid leadership have produced a situation in which the Japanese are so powerful that Major-General Gracey, the British commander, must rely on Lieut-Gene-ral Numata for maintaining order." Major-General Gracey, annoyed by the passive Japanese attitude to the Saigon riots and also their frequent refusals to fire on Annamese, has ordered Field-Marshal Terauchi to move from the Japanese headquarters to the British headquarters, where he is virtually a prisoner. Numata suavely told the Press that the Annamite trouble was too deeply rooted in racial antagonisms to permit easy solution. Pierre Janssens, the wealthiest resident of Indo-China, and the owner of one of the world's, largest rubber plantations, admitted that the Annamese were oppressed economically, and suggested a social security plan. He added that sabotage by Annamese was insignificant.