Press reports alleging that twelve Chinese fishing junks were sunk by a Japanese submarine off Cheelong Point on September 22 were emphatic cally denied by a Japanese naval spokesman here last night 'A careful investigation, the spokesman asserted, has shown that on the day in question there was no Japanese submarine on duty in the vicinity of Amoy or off the mouth of the Kao-loong River.
The officers and men of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the spokesman revealed, have been issued the following instructions:
1—Chinese merchantmen should be detained at specified points, but must not be sunk or damaged unless they disobey naval orders.
2—No Chinese fishing craft should be detained, unless under special circumstances.
"These instructions sre being faithfully obeyed by the officers and men of the Imperial Navy, and I do not believe that there is any possibility of their violation," the spokesman said.
The report of the attack on the junks, he declared, was "propaganda, intended to cast a shadow upon the fair and just attitude of the Navy."
The Imperial Navy, he concluded, "could have never committed such an atrocity, nor will it ever commit one."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.