INDO-CHINA DEMAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 September 1940, Page 5

INDO-CHINA DEMAND

RESISTED BY FRENCH AUTHORITIES NEGOTIATIONS IN PROGRESS JAPANESE DISCLAIMER. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) SHANGHAI, September 3. It is officially reported from Saigon that French Indo-China rejected the Japanese ultimatum to permit Japanese troops to traverse it. The communique announced: “The Governor-Genqral has been advised from Vichy of the conclusion of a Franco-Japanese agreement according to the Japanese certain military privileges under conditions which the Vichy Government is to specify and which will then become the subject of negotiations between the French and Japanese military authorities in IndoChina.

“Without awaiting for the negotiations the Japanese military mission insisted on an agreement being signed before midnight on September 3 granting an immediate right of passage across Indo-China. The Saigon Government by nine votes to two decided it was unable to accept the terms of the ultimatum.” The authorities in the French concession of Shanghai have erected barbed wire barriers and barricaded the cross-streets throughout the concession and have redoubled police patrols. A London message quotes Reuter’s Tokio correspondent as saying that the Japanese Foreign Office spokesman commenting on the statement from Saignon, said, “There is nothing in it.”

A statement issued in Indo-China says that the territory and its people will be defended against all attackers and its rights safeguarded, Daventry reports. The talks between Japan and Indo-China are proceeding in a friendly manner. A Japanese Foreign Office spokesman said it was hoped that matters woudl be smoothed over in a few days. ACUTE STAGE COMMUNICATIONS CUT OFF. SHIPPING FROM HONG KONG BANNED. (Received This Day, 9.0 a.m.) MANILA, September 4. Indo-China appears to be virtually cut off from communications with the outside world, giving rise to the belief in French circles that the situation has reached an acute stage. All shipping to Indo-China from Hong Kong has been banned, leaving as the only transportation route that of the Japan Airways, from Canton to Hanoi. Efforts to communicate with newspaper correspondents at Hanoi have been futile, those attempting to make communications being advised that the censors apparently are holding up both incoming and outgoing messages. ENTRY BY TROOPS STARTING ON FRIDAY. ACCORDING TO JAPANESE GENERAL. HONG KONG. September 4.

Reliable British informants said that General Nishihara, the head of the Japanese military mission in Hanoi, informed Indo-China that Japanese troops would start entering the colony on September 6.