NEW POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1941, Page 6

NEW POLICY

I POSSIBLE IN JAPAN ARMY AMD GOVERNMENT AT ODDS. AVOIDANCE OF CONFLICT WITH AMERICA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK. May 12. According to Mr Joseph Newman, Tokio correspondent of the “HeraldTribune" there is further evidence that the Japanese Army and Government have reached the parting of the ways and that the outcome may be a complete re-orientation of policy toward either the Axis or China. Mr Newman believes Japan has made two important decisions: firstly; to hold in abeyance her southward expansion drive against Thailand, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies; and secondly, to press on the Foreign Office her desire for an early solution of the war with China. » War with America must be avoided at all costs, he says. A Canberra message says the Minister of External Affairs (Sir Frederick Stewart), referring to the New York Joseph Newman message, said the Australian Minister to Japan would be asked to report on the correctness or otherwise of the story about Japan’s reported moves. WAR RUMOURS DROP IN STOCK MARKET AT TOKIO. (Received This Dav, 12.5 p.m.) TOKIO, May 12. Japanese stock market quotations dropped sharply as a result of persistent rumours that the United States was about to participate in the war. Shipping issues • particularly suffered. The “Nichi Nichi Shimbun,” “Hochi Shimbun” and other newspapers reiterated the sentiment expressed by the “Japan Times” that peace in China would be impossible unless the United States approved. The Domei News Agency said Japanese planes from Indo-China heavily bombed the Burma Road. ATTACKS ON AXIS

JAPANESE ARMY ORGAN OUTSPOKEN. FEARS OF NAZI-SOVIET AGREEMENT. (Received This Day, 1.20 p.m.) TOKIO, May 12. American sources indicate that a cleavage of opinion has occurred between the Japanese Army and the Tokio Government, not only on the subject of the war in China, but also regarding Japanese relations with the Axis. Bewildering attacks on the Axis are being made by the “Kokomin Shimbun,” the official organ of the Japanese Army. In a front page editorial today, the “Kokumin Shimbun” declared that Japan could not look on with folded hands in the event of a German-Soviet agreement granting Russia a free hand in Asia in return for larger Soviet supplies to Germany. The paper warned that Japan must guard against “unilateral and opportunistic territorial transfers of hegemony by any Power” before the fundamental conditions of a new world order were realised. The "Kokumin Shimbun” on Saturday, attacking Nazi interference in countries outside Germany, said: — “National Socialism is as dangerous to Japan as Communism or democracy.” A widely-read Japanese commentator, Retsu Kiyosawa, said a United States declaration of war against Germany would not necessarily require Japanese retaliatory action against America. It would bo dangerous to assume that a German victory against the United States would bring peace in the Pacific.