JAPANESE ISLANDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22064, 21 September 1933, Page 9

JAPANESE ISLANDS

ALLEGED FORTIFICATION BISHOP’S VISIT BANNED LONDON, September 19. The Times, in a special article by a “well-informed correspondent,” declares that the fact that the Anglican Bishop of South Tokio was forbidden to visit Bonin Island because it was a fortified area explains the current rumours that the Japanese have fortified their mandated islands. The Bonins are not mandated, but are now so precious that even foreign ecclesiastics cannot land on their shores. Possessing a fine harbour, they have an obvious strategic - alue, because in the event of Japanese hostilities with a strong naval Power threatening Japan’s Eastern mandates fortification of the Bonins would prevent the enemy’s aircraft and submarines from using this important advanced base.—Times Cable.

NAVY DEPARTMENT’S DENIAL.

TOKIO, September 20. (Received Sept. 21, at 1.30 a.m.)

The Navy Department emphatically denies that there has been any fortification of Bonin Islands since the signing of the Washington Treaty in 1922.