JAPAN AND POWERS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20109, 1 December 1939, Page 2

JAPAN AND POWERS

NO NEGOTIATIONS ' Conflict in cabinet OPTIMISM PREMATURE LONDON, Oct. 31. The British Foreign Office and the United States Embassy in London are maintaining silence about future moves in the Far East as a result of the official Japanese announcement yesterday that Japan has no intention at the moment of opening negotiations with Britain and the U.S.A. It is now believed in London that the official declaration yesterday was the outcome of a stern struggle within the Japanese Cabinet, showing that there is by no means unity in the Cabinet room. Whatever the inner history of the recent attempts to improve immediately relations with Britain and the U.S.A., it has been made clear that the Japanese Government, at least temporarily, does not intend to open the negotiations which had been so noisily heralded by the Japanese press. The Tokio correspondent of The Times states: “Having demolished, like a house of cards, the speculations which had been given a leading place in leading journals for several days, the Japanese Foreign Office spokesman directed attention to what he called a far more important item of news—namely, the impending advent of a new Chinese Government.

“Mr. Wang Ching-Wei’S negotiations with his Chinese supporters are going smoothly, and the Japanese spokesman predicted that the new Government would be established within a month, and would later obtain the adhesion of many officials of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), and that the appearance of the new Government would eventually lead to a clarification of the Far Eastern situation as a matter of course.” A Change of Front

It is generally accepted that this may be a hint that Japan may be ready to negotiate after the new Government is in the saddle. But it is, perhaps, significant that the spokesman declined to say so. In harmony with the Japanese spokesman’s declaration, the Japanese press effects an adroit change of front and records that officials believe that the utmost caution must be exercised in determining Japanese policies before negotiations with Britain or the U.S.A. can be reopened. Many difficulties exist, it is declared, and optimism would be premature. Suggestions of a compromise regarding the disputes over the Tientsin silver reserve and the North China currency are reported to be dropped. An unsuccessful plot to assassinate General Ugaki, a former Foreign Minister, which was revealed to-day, after the raising of the police ban on news, indicates that many groups favouring reactionary political activities are still turning out men who are ready to risk death to register their disagreement with the nation’s foreign policy. General Ugaki’s would-be assassin, who is a clerk, aged 20, has been handed over to the judicial authorities. He is alleged to have boarded a train in which General Ugaki was travelling to Tokio from a tour of Hokkaido and Sakhalin. The youth carried a threeinch dagger. He was unable to use it, because of the close guard surrounding General Ugaki. The youth himself revealed the plot by telling a friend.