COURSE TAKEN BY JAPAN

Southland Times, Issue 24144, 5 June 1940, Page 7

COURSE TAKEN BY JAPAN

Non-Intervention In War TOKYO, June 3. Rear-Admiral Mitsumasi Yonai, the Prime Minister, in a Press interview said: “There is a way of improving the aggravated relations between Japan and the United States, but it is neither being considered nor taken. I am not in a position to disclose the nature of this way to better relations.” This statement is interpreted to mean that Japan does not intend to conciliate the United States by abandoning any policies towards China or other Far Eastern issues. Rear-Admiral Yonai added that he did not regard the presence of United States warships at Hawaii as menacing. He was confident that the Japanese Navy could not be defeated. The nation need not worry over the JapaneseUnited States naval ratio. Japan was prepared to face any development. She intended at present firmly to maintain non-intervention. Rear-Admiral Yonai denied that he was preparing to negotiate peace with the Chungking Government. Mr Hachiro Arita, the Foreign Minister, said that Japan’s concern was not confined to the maintenance of a political status quo in the Netherlands East Indies. In view of the resources of trade and industrial potentialities, naturally Japan was very seriously concerned over the economic status of the true East Indies, which were connected with Europe as a Dutch possession and also intimately bound up with the destiny of East Asia. Mr Arita drew a picture of two nations, one small in area with a large population and poor natural resources, the other large and thinly populated with good resources. “Suppose further,” he said, “that a situation developed in which tariff walls, immigration restrictions and other barriers seriously imneded the normal flow of goods and commodities between them. We could hardly expect an absence of friction and conflict. I am afraid that not a few socalled Pacific questions may be traced to such contradictions and injustices.” DEFENCE VOLUNTEERS IN BRITAIN SIR EDMUND IRONSIDE TO MEET LEADERS General Sir Edmund Ironside, Com-mander-in-Chief of the Home Forces, will meet leaders of the Local Defence Volunteers in Britain on Wednesday and Thursday to explain the part to be played by the volunteers, who will act under military authority as an Integral part of the armed forces.