The statement read as follows:
"The League of Nations declared that the actions now being taken by Japan in China are a violation of the Nine-Power Treaty and the Treaty for the Renunciation of War, while the was by no means premeditated, but was simply defensive.
"China is undoubtedly responsible for the spread of the affair to Shanghai and then to other points of Central China.
"She openly violated the agreement for the cessation of hostilities concluded in Shanghai in 1932 by concentrating overwhelmingly numerous forces of more than 40,000 men in the demilitarized zone, and attempted to annihilate our Naval Landing Party numbering but scarcely 3,000 men, and to wipe out our 30000 nationals living in the Settlement among whom there were numerous women and children, "The subsequent development of the Japanese military action has been but an unavoidable: consequence of the hostile operations of China, who, ignoring our policy of local settlement and non-aggravation of the situation, moved and.concentrated large armies against us.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.