STARTLING ALLEGATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21319, 25 January 1933, Page 7

STARTLING ALLEGATIONS

JAPANESE SUBMARINE BASES

REPORT BY MANDATES COMMISSION

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright

LONDON, January 24

(Received January 25, at 11 a.m.)

It is understood that the Mandates Commission’s report, which is being presented to the League Council, deals with the startling allegations that Japan has spent £IOO,OOO in the preparation of submarine bases at Marianne Island.

SIMILAR RUMOUR LAST YEAR

DENIED BY JAPAN,

LONDON, January 24, (Received January 25, at 11 a.m.) The Geneva correspondent of the ‘ Daily Herald,’ which is bitterly antagonistic to Japan, publishes the grave suggestion that the League and America are disturbed by the reports that Japan is secretly preparing submarine bases at the Marianne and Pelow Islands, held under mandate forbidding fortification, and meanwhile Japan is forbidding unauthorised visitors to approach the new harbours. The report was shown to Mr Bruce, who quoted an extract from the minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission, showing that a similar rumour was investigated last year by the commission, which sent a Note to the Japanese delegates. Their denial was later confirmed by the Government’s statement that Japan never contemplated the creation of a naval base in the islands under her mandate.

SHORT-LIVED STIR

LONDON, January 24. (Received January 25, at 12.45 p.m.) The stir about the alleged Japanese naval base in the Pacific was shortlived. The Mandates Commission accepted the Japanese delegates’ statement that the Government had no intention of establishing a base on the mandated islands. The scare apparently arose out of an article in a Geneva journal.