WORLD’S PEACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18445, 5 January 1922, Page 5

WORLD’S PEACE

ARMS CONFERENCE. FAR EASTERN AFFAIRS, THE SHANTUNG QUESTION. t JAPANESE DELAY EXPLAINED, / (Fbom the Special Repbesentativb of THE 1 AuaTBALIAN PBEB3 ASSOCIATION.) WASHINGTON, January 3. One explanation of the Japanese delay in completing the Shantung settlement is offered, to the effect that their Government has been trying to reopen direct negotiations with Peking, following on the change of Government there. It is suggested that the Japanese are preparing a statement, pointing out that neither the Chinese nor the Siberian Governments are sufficiently stable for ordinary arrangements to be made with them. The State Department denies that there are. any documents on the file confirming the Chinese statements, and there is no official information in any sort of way confirming the story. There is a certain amount of activity to-day in Chinese and Japanese circles, and wiule it is probably technically inaccurate to say that Mr Hughes’s and Mr Balfour’s good offices have again been invoked in the Stantune matter, there is little doubt that British and American observers are endeavouring to bring the two nations together again. —A. and N.Z. Cable. ' _____ , i SIBERIA. FRANCG-JAPANESB AGREEMENT DENIED. ' ' PARIS, January 3. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs dias issued a statement formally denying/'the alleged Franco-Japanese agreement regarding Siberia.—A. and N.Z. Cable. (Fbom the Special Repbesentative of THE AUSTRALIAN PbESS ASSOCIATION.) WASHINGTON, January 3. Mr Hughes, replying to General Sarraut, said he was gratified to find that the French Government formally denies having corns to any agreement, or having carried on any negotiations concerning the status of Siberia. Mr 1 Hughes gays he is glad to accept the statement that the documents are not authentic.—A. and N.Z. Cable. I " V- / CHINA AND JAPAN. DIRECT NEGOTIATION® j ALLEGED. f| ; * ■ • ' IP 1. ADMIRAL NATO’S DENIAL. \ (Fbom the Special Repeebentattve 'of the Australian Press Association.) \ WASHINGTON, January 3, (Received Jan. 4, at 5.5 p.m.) The American spokesman to-day said that there was still a most hopeful prospect of the Shantung dispute being settled without intervention freon the outside, though the Chinese delegation is still asserting that they cannot make further concessions. General Sze told the press that , the Chinese are waiting impatiently to resume. ' The Japanse say that they have asked Tokio for instructions. They have received some, but require more. They are still corresponding with their Government. Admiral Kato denies that any direct negotiations are going on between China and Japan at Poking, and characterises as absolutely false everything published by the Chita representatives, including the new statement issued to-day that a secret treaty had been made by certain Japanese officers and generals by which Japan was to arm and finance the Russians against the forces of the Chita Republic. The present Japanese Cabinet had never financed any Russian troops whatever. Admiral Kato is very emphatic in his denials, and says that he must halve known if anything of the kind had been going on. / It was impossible to conceive of anything like it happening. It was the Japanese policy to withdraw troops from Siberia, alter which questions of the “administration !of the count ry would become matters of Siberian domestic policy. The troops would be withdrawn whenever t Japan received a guarantee that the Bob sheviat troops did not intend to invade Manchuria and Korea. Apparently negotiations to that end were now going on. Japan might not ask for a guarantee of the safety of her property if she thought it unnecessary to do so. . Admiral Kato would not discuss Sakhalin which, he said, was in a different "categoifjr. It is understood that the British acquiesed in China getting a higher tariff, but Franca is still standing-^ut.—A. and N.Z.'Gable.