INTERNED BRITONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 62, 14 March 1942, Page 5

INTERNED BRITONS

TREATMENT BY JAPANESE Rugby, March 12. The Foreign Secretary (Mr. Eden), speaking in the House of Commons, said there was at present no evidence that British subjects in Japan and in territories occupied by the Japanese forces had been subjected to treatment similar to that experienced in Hongkong, but reliable information was scarce owing to the refusal hitherto of the Japanese authorities in many places to grant facilities to representatives of the protecting Power to satisfy themselves that British subjects generally, whether interned or not, were properly treated. In Shanghai and other places occupied in China, British subjects apparently had not been, interned although their freedom of movement had been in varying degrees restricted, and a small number of persons, whose identity it had been impossible to ascertain, had been arrested by the Japanese military police. In Japan and other centres it was reported that many British subjects had been interned, but nothing was known regarding conditions in the places of internment. Mr. Eden announced that His Majesty’s Government was doing its utmost to obtain information' and to arrange that visits by representatives of the protecting Power to areas I where these places of internment are I situated shall he permitted by the • Japanese Government.