ANOTHER PROTEST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 53, 31 January 1938, Page 7

ANOTHER PROTEST.

“SLAPPING” INCIDENT. WASHINGTON, Jan. 29. The Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) has instructed Mr J. C. Grew (Ambassador to Japan) vigorously to protest concerning the Allison slapping incident, after publication of the report that an attache affronted him while he was investigating a Chinese woman’s charge that she had been criminally assaulted three times by Japanese soldiers who kidnapped her from Nanking American University. The New York Times’s Washington correspondent states that the State Department considers that Mr. Allison’s mission was a legitimate one. Mr Allison, moreover, reported that he received little comfort from the Japanese Embassy when he reported the incident there, it being intimated that the sentry was within his rights in slapping him. Later, however, the attache made a personal apology. . The State Department is gratified that the Japanese High Command sent a senior officer to Shanghai and Nanking to investigate the violation of American rights, but regard with great gravity the fact that responsible Japanese officials showed an almost hostile attitude regarding the Allison slapping, contrasting with the conciliatory tone adopted after the sinking 'of the Panay. A message dispatched on January 27 stated that a Japanese sentry at Nanking had assaulted Mr Allison, the Third Secretary of the United States Embassy. The Japanese authorities had apologised for the assault and had warned their nationals to avoid besmirching Japan’s good name.