TALK OF ARMISTICE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19503, 9 December 1937, Page 10

TALK OF ARMISTICE

ATTITUDE OF JAPAN CHINA MUST MOVE FIRST LONDON, Nov. 26. "Japan's severely negative attitude towards mediation is tempered only by her announced willingness to receive, and consider, any proposals which a neutral Power may introduce," declares the Tokio correspondent of The Times.

"Some sign of submission on China's part is essential before Japan will discuss peace. The Government here does not conceive this attitude as novel or unreasonable. It is, it is declared, for a defeated party to ask for an armistice.

"The Japanese Government must consider the internal conditions of the country when making peace. Not only opinion in Tokio but opinion in the fighting services must be carefully handled. Japan's terms we're informally known, in broad outline, wjth the Chinese Government at the outbreak of the affair,' and China is not entirely ignorant of the basis upon which to negotiate. ''Tfie Japanese Foreign Office still thinks that it would .be premature to announce the terms on which Japan would agree to an armistice. The reason given is," he states, "that the Chinese have shown no sign that they are prepared to negotiate the kind of settlement that Japan demands. "High authorities here agree," he continues, "that it is to Japan's interests as well as China's that hostilities should cease. They repudiate the suggestion that Japan is asking for China's unconditional surrender, but insist that China, as the defeated party, should move first. The pledge that there will be no territorial acquisitions is declared to be still valid, although it will certainly be found that apan will demand guarantees that that Japan will demand guarantees that she would not have asked three