BLUNT WARNING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 June 1939, Page 5

BLUNT WARNING

GIVEN TO JAPANESE AMBASSADOR ATTACKS ON BRITONS MUST CEASE INTIMATION BY LORD HALIFAX. REPRISALS SAID TO BE READY. (Independent Cable Service.) LONDON, June 25. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, who spent the weekend in London, told the Japanese Ambassador bluntly that Britain was nearing the end of her patience and that attacks on Britons must cease. It is believed that the Government has reprisals ready, including the closing of all British Empire ports to Japanese shipping, a prohibitive tariff on Japanese goods and an attack on Japanese currency, but Britain hesitates adopting them because to be effective they would need to be on an enormous scale and might precipitate a state of war. Concentration of the fleet in the Far East, however, is most likely. The “Sunday Express,” in an editorial, says the whole of Japanese industrial life would be paralysed if the country were prevented from importing over the seas controlled by the British Fleet raw materials for its plants and factories. Though Japan would suspend the payment-of loans to Britain, the fact is that £50,000,000 out of £75,000,000 has already disappeared, leaving only £25,000,000. Japanese banks and financial houses depend on the goodwill and credit facilities of the London market. A Hong Kong message states that two British warships arrived at Chefoo, resulting in the Japanese abandoning their anti-British demonstration. ABUSES CONTINUE TREATMENT OF BRITONS AT SEARCHING POSTS. MR G. A. SMITH RELEASED. (Received This Day, 9.50 a.m.) TIENTSIN June 25. Tons of vegetables, fifteen bullocks and thirty pigs are being brought to Tientsin from Shanghai tomorrow. Mr G. A. Smith has been released. • Mr D. Finlay, an employee of the Bank of India, Australia and China, accompanied by his wife, a second time was ordered to strip naked at a searching post in full view of Chinese women. His wife was taken to a hut where she was almost stripped in the presence of a Japanese sentry, and searched by a Chinese woman. I The Japanese military headquarters has apologised for a sentry’s demand to search a British officer desiring to enter the Concession, but who ordered his driver to turn back when a search was threatened.

PEKING LETTER THREAT BY THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT. FAILURE OF INTENDED DEMONSTRATION. PEKING, June 24. The.puppet Government has sent a letter to the British and French embassies threatening that unless the Japanese demands are met in Tientsin the Peking Government will be forced to take the necessary steps to deal with the situation. Only 500 instead of 100,000 attended an anti-British mass ipeeting. The majority were children, who were driver through the streets in Japanese military lorries while shouting abusive slogans.