ABYSSINIAN TREATY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 13

ABYSSINIAN TREATY

RATIFICATION WITH JAPAN HELD UP The ratification of the long delayed treaty between Japan and Abyssinia will take place shortly, the government having at last found a professor at the Imperial University who could read Ambyssinian. The treaty is written in the language of the African kingdom, and although there are supposedly correct copies in English and in Japanese, the Foreign Office could not offer the original for ratification until it had been read and certified by a person in authority who had been properlysworn. This seemed at first an almost impossible task. No one in the Foreign Office could read Abyssinian. A canvass of other offices and two or three colleges failed to turn up an Ambyssinian scholar. There were experts in almost every other language, and several even who could translate Sanscrit, but none knew anything about Abyssinian.

As last the Imperial Uxtrefsity produced a professor, whs had for some reason or other in the past spent some years in the study of Abyssinian. He has qualified, and has been sworn, and what might have been an international incident has been avoided.