Tokyo, Dec. 8.
In his conversations with Mr. Joseph C. Grew, the American Ambassador, today Mr. Hachiro Arita, Japanese Foreign Minister, is reported to have asserted that the emergence of an economic bloc including Japan, Manchoukuo and China was the dominating factor in the present situation in the Far Fast.
However, the tone of Mr. Arita's remarks is understood to have been more conciliatory than recent statements and notes had seemed to foretell.
The conciliatory tone was, particularly in evidence in his conversation "dealing with America. Mr. Arita gave Mr. Grew assurances that a definite improvement of-Japanese-American relations would be sought.
Foreign diplomats in Tokyo following today's conversations speculated on the possibility that the acuteness of the present fisheries dispute with the 'USSR, was instilling a desire on the part of the Japanese Government for smooth relations and non-aggravation in regard. to other Powers.
It was understood that the Japanese Foreign Minister in his conversations with the American and British envoys today showed a desire to settle pending problems with third Powers by means of oral statements rather than through formal notes.
Discussing the new Asiatic econò- mic bloc, Mr. Arita pointed to the British colonial empire and also to the growing collaboration between the various American republics as being of a similar nature.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.