MISSIONARIES IN KOREA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17651, 11 December 1920, Page 9

MISSIONARIES IN KOREA

JAPANESE ALLEGATIONS. DISAVOWAL IN TOKIO. Australian and NZ. Cable Association. (Reed. 8.30 p.m.) TOKIO, Dec. 9. The Japanese Foreign Office has informed the British Government that it disavows responsibility for the letter sent to Canadian missionaries in Korea by the Japanese Military Commission. Officials declare that the letter was the work of a single officer. The Japanese Military Commission at Chien-tao, Manchuria, presented a letter to the chief of the Canadian Presbyterian Mission at Hung Chun, saying that British missionaries must either cease political anti-Japanese activities or get out. The letter reminded the Canadian missionaries that the British Dominions were also troubled by revolutionary plotters, and urged them not to give legal excuses to Japanese Buddhists to go to India and assist the non-co-operators, or to Ireland to assist the Sinn Feiners. Major-General Sato, as spokesman of the Japanese War Office, was also reported as stating in regard to Christianmissionaries in Korea that it was a coincidence that many of the plotters executed were Christians, but plotters in many instances allied themselves with the Christian missions in order to gain the security these afforded. Missionaries accusing- the Japanese troops of cruelty were themselves the cause of the tragedy. He regretted that the Koreans were not awake to the fact that their real grievance w,as against these mischief-making missionaries. Japan allowed full religious liberty, but she would not allow treason, which threatened to undermine the foundations of the Empire.