Mr, Kodama criticized the recent] speech In the House of Commons in which the British Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, said Japan could not develop China without Great Britain's financial help.
"Mr. Chamberlain," he said. "seems either not to understand the situation quite correctly, or he might have been misquoted, or meant more than, he said. True, we should need capltal it we had to complete our work in a hurry by a certain fixed date, But that is not going to be the exes. We aim at working principally for the happiness of the Chinese people. There is under our command plenty labour and food, the organizing power of Chinese' and Jepanese brains and ample natural resources to exploit. If we go along slowly, we do not think we shall have to depend upon foreign financial help, although this does not mean to say. that our policy will be to exclude it."
Chinese Intimidatea Asked if Chinese business leaders in the occupied areas had shown any disposition to ce-operate with the Japanese in their commercial enterprises, Mr. Kodama replied: "Yes, they have, but fect of assassination by General Chiang Kal-shek's agents has hindered greater participation.
'The Central China Development 'Company, Mr. Kodama said, was a Purely Japanese concern, but its am-Usted and subsidiary' companies would be joint Sino-Japanese enterprises, Replying to a question whether: third-party capital would be welcome, he said: "That depends on the circumstances. If third parties show a friendly altitude towards us, we will not refuse their ce-operation: in fact, we should be glad and willing to have it"
'Although his Company was purely 9 commercial concern, its work, Mr. Kodama declared, would in a sense be political. He' was eager to im-Prove the relations between Japan and the foreign Powers, and he would do nothing which would tend to exclude foreign business from China, It wes entirely wrong to suppose that foreign rms' would lose their trading rights in China.
"It Shanghai Flourishes"
Referring particularly to Shanghai, Mr. Kodama ssid: "If Shanghai flourishes, then Japanese business will flourish, and there is no reason why and." foreign business should not also ex-'The damage to industries in the wer areas it Central China, he went
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.