AUSTRALIAN TROOPS

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21373, 18 March 1941, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN TROOPS

SLANDER BY RADIO JAPANESE MINISTER’S VIEWS “LOT OF NOISE” GOING ON (United Press Assn. Elec. T*»L Copyright) SYDNEY, March 17 Referring yesterday to the slandering of the Australian Imperial Force in Malaya by the Tokio radio, the Japanese Minister to Australia, Mr Tatsuo Kawai, who presented his letters of credence the same day, suggested that it might be a mistake to take such episodes too seriously. The radio station, he said, was not officially controlled. Mr Kawai said that a “lot of noise” was going on at present. It was probably the product of the tension under which the world in general was living. Asked what his attitude would be if statements similarly reflecting on the Japanese Army were made by an Australian commercial broadcasting station or in the Australian press, Mr Kawai smiled. He agreed with a suggestion that all cases had to be treated on their merits. Mr Kawa said that the Japanese press was so free that he himself had often been under fire from the Domei News Agency, the head of which was one of his closest friends. Mr Kawai said that the Japanese sed the subject with the Japanese Charge d’Affaires, Mr Akiyama. The Acting-Prime Minister, Mr Fadden, said that he had still to discuss complaints about the Tokio broadcast with Mr Akiyama. He had still to ask the Minister of External Affairs, Sir Frederick Stewart, officially to take up the question of the broadcast with the Japanese Government.