JAPAN'S REPLY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23103, 30 July 1938, Page 13

JAPAN'S REPLY

BRITISH THREATS DEBATE IN COMMONS " rUBLIC INDIGNANT " NEW ATTACK BEGUN By Telegraph—Press Associalion—Copyright (Received July 20, 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, July 20 The Japanese Foreign Office spokesman, Mr. T. Kawai, said the public was justifiably indignant at the threatening anti-Japanese tone of the debate on China in the British House of Commons, says a message from Tokio. Mr. Kawai said the theory that a threat of force would stop the conflict showed lack of knowledge of both the situation and Japanese psychology. The Japanese have launched on the north bank of tho Yangtso River a new drive toward Hankow. Three columns are aiming at Tailiu, a place of strategic importance 40 miles north of tho river. POWERS' INTERESTS LORD HALIFAX'S WARNING COMMENT BY THE TIMES LONDON, July 28 Coinciding with Viscount Halifax's warning to Japan in the House of Lords, the Times, in a leading article, says: "Japan's position is such that slio cannot safely continue indefinitely to flout tho interests of third parties. "There is internal trouble in Manchukuo, tension on the Russian frontier and the economic situation at home, persists in a slow, inevitable decline which no predictable development can arrest within tho next few years. "Japan's threats to Britain are partly accidental, partly instinctive, and partly deliberate, and Lord Halifax's warning was timely." AID FOR CHINESE FINANCE AND ECONOMICS LORD LYTTON'S ADVOCACY LONDON, July 2.> "China does not expect military assistance, but is at least entitled not to be deprived of financial aid, merely because she is the victim of aggression." Thus Lord Lytton, who was chairman of the League of Nations mission to Manchuria in 1932, writes in a letter to the Times.

"Are we to refuse assistance," asks Lord Lytton, "merely because China is fighting for her life against a military invasion?

"Anglo-Chinese financial and economic collaboration serves not only Chinese interests, but also our own. It is a British interest of a very material kind that the stability of Chinese currency be maintained." ANOTHER OPINION

JAPAN'S HANDICAP LONDON, Jnly 25 "It is obviously probable that China can win without being propped up," writes Owen Lattimore in the Atlantic Monthly, under the heading "Rising Sun, Falling Profits." "It is certain that Japan cannot pull through without a heavy investment of British and American industrial resources. Materials and credits from Italy or Germany cannot swing it. "British and American investments in Japan-controlled China, like similar investments in Japan, Korea and Manchuria, would be used to strengthen Japanese competition against Britain and America outside the Japanese Fmpire."