ORDERLY RETREAT TO MANCHURIA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 22 May 1928, Page 5

ORDERLY RETREAT TO MANCHURIA

CHANG NEGOTIATING WITH

.JAPAN

(Received 22nd Mav, 1,5 p.m.) TOKiO."'2lst May

To-day's despatches indicate that Chang Tso-lin is now negotiating with Japan in an effort to arrange an orderly retreat into Manchuria without making a show-down battle against the Nationalists, as he previously announced he intended.

To Japan the question threatens to assume a show-down with regard to her oft reiterated declaration of "special interest in Manchuria, and Mongolia," i:s it is believed that submission to Chang Tsolin's desires could not but, weaken the Japanese position, and might be only temporising with, what the whole empire considers a question vital to national warfare.

It is stated that Japan intends to abide by the spirit of the Washington Declaration with regard to China, but that any action necessarv to preserve the Matiehurian peace shoTild not be interpreted as violating this spirit. The general tenseness of the situation is indicated by the fact that the wives of the Japanese Minister at Pekin and the Legation counsellor left Pekin to-day for Tokio, while the total Japanese evacuation since the Tsinan-fn incident iias reached 500.