The "Japan Times" edited by Japanese, and credited with being very close, to Japanese government circles, has the following comment to make regarding an anti-British mass meeting held in the Hibiya auditorium on Tuesday July 4:—
"The Anti-British Diplomatic Lecture Mass Meeting," which was held, as reported elsewhere, Tuesday evening at the Hibiya Auditorium under the auspices of the Hochi Shimbun, was a Success as far as its attendance was concerned. The "public building was literally packed with people and there were more than twice as many people forming queues outside.
Ryutaro Nagai, former Communications Minister, in the course of his speech said: "The Chiang Kai-shek regime has been on the verge of collapse for a long time. This regime has not given up its fight against Japan because Britain stands behind it. For this regime Britain not only provides war expenses but also supplies arms and munitions. It is Britain that disturbs the peace of China today."
This reasoning is not so straight as perhaps may have been made. But this is the sentiment now common in the country. As long as this Sort of sentiment prevails in the country, the general atmosphere is anything but congenial for peaceful parleys. The choice of Tokyo may after all have been far from a happy one. It might have occurred to our and British authorities that Shanghai where the Japanese have not put up any warlike preparations like wire entanglements and barricades, would have been a better place.
With the expression of opinion in the "Japan Times" to the effect that "this reasoning is not so straight as perhaps may have been made," there is every possible agreement. The former Communications Minister omitted to mention that one of the largest, if not the largest purveyor of arms to the Chiang Kai-shek regime is Germany, leading member in the Anti-Comintern Pact to which Japan is also a party. Despite the fact that Japan claims to be fighting communism, Germany nevertheless supplies China with considerable amount of arms and munitions. Yet there seems to be no complaint on the part of the Japanese. Doubtless it Britain had an understanding with Japan, it would also be able to supply China with arms, and again it has to be emphasized that the Japan argument, which appears to be that it is not what is being done which is wrong, but he who is doing it, is reasoning, which, as the "Japan Times" so rightly remarks, "is not so straight.' Indeed it is very definitely twisted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.