PACIFIC SCARE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21400, 26 January 1933, Page 9

PACIFIC SCARE

JAPANESE NAVAL BASE PROMPT DENIAL AT GENEVA LONDON, Jan. 24 It was reported to-day that the Mandates Commission, in a report to be presented to the Council of the League of Nations, deals with the startling allegation that Japan spent £IOO,OOO in the preparation of submarine bases at Pelew and Marianne Islands, in the Pacific. The Geneva correspondent of the Daily Herald, which is bitterly antagonistic to Japan, made the grave suggestion that the League and America were disturbed by reports that Japan was secretly preparing submarino bases at the islands named, which are held under a mandate that forbids fortification.

The correspondent also stated that meanwhile Japan was forbidding unauthorised visitors to approach the new harbours, and that the sum of £IOO,OOO has been spent in preparing bases at the islands.

The report was shown to the Australian Minister in London, Mr. S. M. Bruce, who quoted an extract from the minutes of the Mandates Commission showing that a similar rumour was investigated last year by the commission, which noted the Japanese delegate's denial. The stir about the alleged naval baso was short-lived. The Mandates Commission accepted the Japanese delegate's statement that the Government had no intention of establishing a baso in the mandated islands. The scare apparently arose out of an article in a Geneva journal.