U.S. DEMANDS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20619, 21 November 1941, Page 5

U.S. DEMANDS

REPLY TO JAPAN SETTLEMENT BASIS PROBLEMS IN PACIFIC TOKIO PRESS ANNOYED (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Nov. 21, 11 a.m.) NEW YORK, Nov. 20. The Washington correspondent o£ the New York Herald-Tribune learns reliably that the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, presented the following programme to the special Japanese envoy, Mr. Kurusu, as the basis of a general settlement- of Pacific problems:— (1) Japan to leave the Axis. (2) Renounce further aggression. (3) Withdraw her army from China and Indo-China. (4) Permit equal trading rights to all nations in the Pacific. Mr. Kurusu is still awaiting instructions from Tokio. According to a report from Tokio, the Japanese newspapers on Wednesday adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards the United States, but the Japan Times and Advertiser referred to the arrival of Canadian troops in Hong Kong as one more instance of unwarranted provocation in the Far East. The defence of Hong Kong was impracticable in such an isolated position. It was not made any more definite by the arrival of further battalions. A better move all round would be the withdrawal of British forces and greater trust in Japan’s assertions that her aims in the Pacific were peaceful co-operation.

Major-General Sato, chief of the Military Affairs Committee, expressed the opinion that the revision of the anti-air raid regulations, as suggested by the Government, would make it impossible for a single enemy plane to reach Japanese territory. The most recent statements in the Diet by the Japanese Prime Minister, General Tojo and the Fon.ign Minister, Mr. Togo, suggest that Japan has modified her East Asia programme, reports the Tokio correspondent of the New York Times, Mil D. Tolischus.

Mr. Togo declared that the Government does not harbour territorial designs on nations in the Far East. General Tojo significantly said that it would be going too far to say that Japan’s co-prosperity programme aims at the immediate liberation of the oppressed races. General Tojo’s statement is tantamount to a repudiation of the extremists’ demands to liberate East Asia from the white man and evict foreign barbarians.