NOT RELEASED YET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 July 1939, Page 5

NOT RELEASED YET

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL

SPEARS.

FRUITLESS REPRESENTATIONS MADE TO JAPAN.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 9.25 a.m.) LONDON, July 10.

The Parliament Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr R. A. Butler, in the House of Commons, repeated that representations had been fruitlessly made to Japan for the release of Lieutenant-Colonel Spears, and that recently the matter had been taken up with the Japanese ambassador in London. A definite charge against Lieutenant-Colonel Spears has not yet been formulated.

Lieutenant-Colonel Spears, a British attache, was arrested by the Japanese at Kalgan early in June, as also was Lieutenant Cooper, a language officer sent in an effort to reach him. A Domei (Japanese) News Agency message from Kalgan. on June 7 givresults of the examination of Lieuten-ant-Colonel Spears, alleged that he was found hiding inside the Japanese lines and also that he was sending by a Chinese Communist a wireless message to the British authorities' regarding the conditions inside the Japanese lines. It was claimed that LieutenantColonel Spears was gathering information on behalf of the Koumintang and the Chinese Communists. It was reported some days later that Lieutenant Cooper had been released.