Suggested Ultimatum to China:
Birth Control Campaign: a Geisha's Marriage From Our Own Correspondent, Tokio, July 17.
The ratification of the treaty concluded at Washington for the limitation of naval armaments and of the treaties relative to China by both Houses of the French Parliament has evoked undisguised satisfaction in Japan. Admiral Takarabe, Japan's Minister of the Navy, receiving pressmen, said that it was a source of great satisfaction to him personally as well as to the Department of which he is the chief. He added that he did not entertain the slightest doubt, but that France would ratify the agreements reached at Washington last year. He scouted the reports that Japan had been making overtures to Great Britain and the United States for a separate naval agreement on the basis of the treaty reached at Washington and repeated that at no time did the Navy Department or the Japanese Government entertain the slightest fears that the French would refuse to sign the pact.
Questioned with regard to a report that appeared in the London press recently to the effect that Japan was making special efforts towards building up a powerful air force, Admiral Takarabe said that this polity did call for building up the air arm of the Navy, but declared that "as our strength in this direction is not very great and cannot. compare with that of either Great Britain or the United States, our future actions are nob very comprehensive in comparison."
With regard to the growing anti-Japanese agitation in China, Admiral Takarabe told repre sentatives of the Fourth Estate that the Navy Department is not in the least alarmed and that no gunboats, besides those already on the Yangtze and at ports on the China coast, are likely to be sent. Admiral Takarabe is a man of very pleasing personality, discusses matters with an openness that is very captivating and 1g not averse to a joke being injected into the conversation. He talks English fluently and has seen service in both the Sino Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. Only 46 years of age, it is admitted on all sides that his appointment to the important position he holds was not in any way a form of nepotism, as is sai® to have been the case. when high poets in the army and navy were formerly distributed. but is due to sheer merit, chief of his excellent qualities being his ability to keep a cool head when in a pinch.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.