MANCHURIAN INTERESTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17231, 10 April 1930, Page 4

MANCHURIAN INTERESTS

JAPAN’S RAILWAYS COMMISSIONER-ROTARIAN The quietest passenger on the Niagara on the vessel’s arrival at Auckland from Sydney .was Mr. Masao Ohta. Only with difficulty could it be discovered that he held the important position of commissioner of Japanese railway interests in Manchuria, was occupied to an extent ill mining developments in the huge land over which Russia amid China wrangled heatedly not so long ago, and was, beside this, the representative of the Rotarians of Manchuria at the recent conference at Sydney. Now, Mr. Ohta Ls a through passenger to Honolulu, and later will attend the great convention at Chicago, when Rotary celebrates its twenty-first .birthday. The Manchurian railway lines in which Mr. Ohta is concerned, cover 700 miles from the important centre of Mukden, south to Dairen —a port near Port Arthur on a peninsula in Soutli Manchuria held by Japan—and southeast to Chosen. The productive province of Liao-tung is effectively Tapped. The disagreement between Russia and China over railway rights in the northern areas of Manchuria -did not involve the Japanese concern in any way, Mr. Ohta .said.

There was no doubt that Manchuria, into which millions of Chinese immigrants had poured, had a promising future. Japan, by reason of its adjacent possessions on the mainland, was concerned in such development.

After his visit to the United States, Mr. Ohta will go to Europe to study railway systems in the countries there.

He expects to return to Japan in January, 1931. —Sun.