Afer much bickering and mutual recrimination, negotiations for a fresh settleraent were again opened. But the Japanese had missed their chance. For now the Soviet government not only reverted to the original plan of 1928 of auctioning the whole of the fishery lots impartially—and without any consideration of Japanese claims—but also, on the plea of military security and for reasons of fish conservation, withdrew from the auction forty of the lots which the Japanese claimed as their own special preserve. All demands of the Japanese for exemption of the stabilized lots "belonging to Japan" were firmly rejected, and on March 15 the auction of all the lots took place, at which the Japanese fishing interests did not take part.
Now let us review the arguments on either side. The Japanese, in effect, say:—We have been fishing in these northern waters, in accordance with the rights conferred on us by the Portsmouth Treaty, for over thirty years. We have built up an industry worth nea: ly fifty million yen, of which forty million yen's worth is exported direct to foreign markets, so that the fishing industry plays an important part in balancing our international payments. Moreover? it employs over twenty thousand of our fishermen from Hokkaido s and Saghalin who make from three to five hundred yen in a season.
Of the 280 lots the only ones that the Soviet government has a right to auction publicly are nine ordinary ones, the leases of which expire this year. The remaining 271 are stabilized lots, where we Japanese have been fishing all these years. To auction off these lots to any bidder and to withdraw, on flimsy pretexts, forty of the"best lots from the auction even, is a breach of the spirit of the Portsmouth Treaty and of the letter of the later Fishery Conventions, and a denial of the clear rights of Japanese fishing interests, (Some of the wilder members of the Diet have talked a lot about the fishery dispute being a much deeper struggle, one between two ideologies; but as will have been seen, there was no question of that up to now, and no importance need be attached to that kind of nonsense.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.