VALUE OF ANY GUARANTEE FROM TOKYO DOUBTED

Southland Times, Issue 23389, 22 December 1937, Page 5

VALUE OF ANY GUARANTEE FROM TOKYO DOUBTED

Increase In Anti-Japanese Sentiment

(United Press Association —Telegraph Copyright) (Received December 21, 11.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, December 21. The report of Major-General Harada, a Japanese spokesman at Shanghai, on the Japanese findings about the sinking of the gunboat Panay conflicts so widely with survivors accounts that it seems to have done more to increase antiJapanese sentiment in the United States than any development since the bombing occurred./ The Americans are exasperated, and feel that Japan is staging a comic opera in the face of an unwarranted and unprovoked assault involving dead and wounded and American prestige. The conflicting Japanese explanations are being decried from all quarters as ridiculous, insulting and warranting grave doubt whether any sort of guarantees from Japan is worth while.

The situation could be summed up in the statement that if Japan is deliberately endeavouring to provoke war with the United States she could hardly find a more effective means of stirring the people towards a war spirit. It seems to be indicated that the United States Government will not readily accept conflicting versions of the machine-gunning of the Panay from Tokyo by the Foreign Office and from Shanghai by Major-General Harada, admitting that Japanese troops fired on and boarded the Panay after the bombing but insisting that it is uncertain whether the Panay fired first, and later insisting that the Panay had fired on Japanese ashore and that the Japanese had not machine-gunned the Panay.