FAR EAST CLOUD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21161, 19 April 1932, Page 9

FAR EAST CLOUD.

SOVIET FORCES. WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. MANCHURIAN FRONTIER. TROOPS BEING MASSED. NO ALARM AT TOKIO. By Tclesraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received April 18, 10.15 p.m.) TOKIO, April 18. Japanese officials discredit alarmist reports. mainly originating in Moscow, foretelling trouble with Japan. Nevertheless, military despatches indicate warlike preparations bv Russia, which is massing nine divisions on the Manchurian frontier. The. Japanese Government is not alarmed, but is carefully avoiding actions liable to be regarded as provocative. In regard to a report that Japan is despatching warships to Kamchatka, she is sending only destroyers necessary for the protection of the, fisheries, as has been usual in former years.

RUSSIA'S ATTITUDE. SUSPICIOUS OF JAPAN. MOSCOW EXPECTING CONFLICT. Times Cable. LONDON. April 17. The Riga correspondent of Ihe Times says the Russian press expresses leelings of great uneasiness at the events taking place in Manchuria, especially at reports from Habarovsk, in connection with the discovery of an attempt to blow up a railway bridge over the Sungari River. The newspaper Izvestia interprets this act as part of a deliberate Japanese plan to make more acute relations which al ready are strained, as a preliminary to exploding the Far Eastern powder magazine. ami involving the Soviet in military conflict. The paper alleges that Japan alrcadv has begun to send more troops to Manchuria, and adds: "The Soviet will not begin a war, but will leave the enemy to take the initiative and the entire responsibility.''