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Taranaki Daily News, 31 October 1935, Page 7

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JAPAN’S MANDATES IN PACIFIC. EVASION OVER STRATEGIC VALUE. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Geneva, Oct. 29. The Mandates Commission fruitlessly examined Mr. Ito, Japanese Minister to Poland, in search of information regarding Japan’s mandated territories in the Pacific. Mr. Ito denied that they were fortified and claimed that expenditure on the harbours was not excessive. He evaded questions concerning their strategic value. Mr. Ito contended that Japan, like the United States, was entitled to export goods to mandated territories on an equal footing with League members. Japan, he said, was one of the Powers to which mandates had been delivered by the peace treaties and enjoyed rights the League could not take away. He hinted that Japan might cease to collaborate with the League if it discriminated against Japan, which thus far had collaborated with the Mandates Commission on the understanding that the League respected the treaty provisions governing mandates. The commission referred to the League Council Japan’s claim regarding the right to export goods to the mandated territories.