"We fee! no loss gratified," he con tinued, "with the gradual improve-iment of cordial relations Wetween Japan \and China. We shall one deavour to establish normal relations between Japan, "Manchoukuo and China and to bring about friendly ce-operation among them, imullancously, we intend to cultivate our traditional friendship with Great Britain, the United States, Soviet Russia and the rest of the rations, thus fulfilling our great mission of stabilizing cast Asia.
As to questions relating to commercial and economic affairs:" he went on, "we will strive to satisfy economic needs of our Empire and especially to ensure the free and unitammelied development of our foreign trade through the elimination and adjustment of barriers and other obstacles to international commerce."
Conference "OM the Record"
The upshot is that the correspond ents believe they are in a very precarious position and they recently spent half on hour discussing this Question with Mr, Eiji Amau, the Foreign Office spokesman. Most of the conversation was off the record, Dut it may be stated that the correspondents left feeling much less cer tain of their position, Apparently under martial law it is dangerous not only to repeat false reports bul, in certain cases depending fon the person one is telling them to, also to repeat what is true.
There is no word for spy in the Japanese Janguage so the English word has been adopted. In doing s0, however, the Japanese gave the word the broadest Interpretation possible, They have always been nervous about spies and it Is now suggested that the authorities may regard foreign cor respondents interviewing Japanese oMeials on the pretext of publishing news in their papers but who instead of doing $0, convey such information to their embassies or other quarters, spies. This naturally ig causing considerable misgiving among the correspondents, Many of them often exchange information with embassy people and when the news obtained is not worth sending home, they do not do so. What they would like to know is whether they would be regarded as spies in such an event.
Strangely enough, if one takes the trouble to look the word up in the dictionary, he will discover that such 1 practice may be construed as spying.
Fortunately, the Japanese, authorities have no' intention to arrest all persons in this category. As a matter of fact they have been extremely Tenient in most cases, Moreover few question the right of the authorities to hold a rumour-monger under the circumstances prevailing. What they do seck 1s an official explanation of the specific charges made against Mr. Samson, if for no other reason so that they may avoid gelting into the same trouble.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.