The affair, although, as I have said in a. previous article, the gravest civil disturbances since the rice riots, excited comparatively little interest because it occurred in the interior. An event of similar Froportions taking place in the capital or in one of the big mana-facturing centres, like Osaka, might have lit the train for civil distur. banees of a much graver nature, especially with the large number of radicals and unemployed to be found in the larger cities to-day and the growing unvest-due to the hard. ships of securing a livelihood, The Government still continues to play ostrich and refuses to see in the Nagano riots a conflict and antagonism between the rulers and the ruled. They regard the distur-Dances as merely a temporary phenomenon, devoid of political significance, @ course of action that the vernacular press dubs dangerous The Governor of Nagano Prefecture who was severely thrashed by the mob of farmers and the Chief of Police of that Prefecture, who received similar treatment, have been dismissed from office." The authorities think that this will settle the whole question, but students of the situation think' that this the beginning rather than the end of the matter, The Press Muzzled Despite the recent lesson to be learnt from the British general strike, considerable restriction was put on the freedom of the press. An edict went forth from the Metropolitan Police that there should be no reporting of this important incident, that there should be no comment and that readers should not even be acquainted with the fact that such a prohibitory order had been issued by the authorities. The natural result was a general uneasiness and all sorts of rumours.
In fact, the Police undertook to be reporters and what the Japanes papers ironically dub "false fact were issued. The same thing ce cured after the 1923 earthquake.
Whilst the was muzzled, wholesale arrests were carried out which, it is alleged, were so conducted as to infringe personal rights. "Such is not a state of things of which a constitutional-governed people can be proud of," is the consensus of comment in the Japanese press. "Such things make the freedom of the people, as guaranteed in the Constitution, a dubious entity."
Toxyo, Aug. 22-—Mr. Tatsuichiro Funatsu,'ex-Consul-General at Mukden and formerly Consul-General at. Shanghai, who recently decided to assume office as director of the Association of Japanese Cotton, Mills in China at the request of the Association, left here for Shanghai this morning—Tohe.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.