Yesterday's leading article in the "North-China Daily News" was described by Japanese official spokesmen in the afternoon as "grossly exaggerated, "malicious," unsubstanfiated" and "tending to besmirch the good name of the Japanese troops." Doubt as to the accuracy of the facts contained in the article was also expressed by the spokesman when a foreign correspondent said that when he attempted to cable lengthy quotations of the article in question, quoting this journal, his message was turned down by the Japanese censor. The correspondent said that he had filed a protest with H.M. Consul-General.
The inquirer, China correspondent for the "Manchester Guardian, asked. the spokesmen if they had any reason to doubt the accuracy of the figures given in the article.
"We have sufficient grounds to doubt the coho 3 accuracy of this report," was the reply.
"Would it be possible to get any information, or for you to give us any idea of the extent of your information, as to how far these figures do represent the situation?—The information in our hands tends to indicate that the figures given in this report are grossly exaggerated."
"Any Objection?"
"Is there any objection to the cabling abroad of such newspaper reports, as such?—Of course we have an objection ta that!"
"The reason I ask is because to-day I filed a despatch which quoted a great part of this morning's editorial in the 'North-China. I was also in possession of private information from Nanking, information from another source, which confirmed the figures in the 'North-China.' I was telephoned to by a gentleman who called himself the Japanese censor, who asked me ie I was prepared to withdraw the message. I asked why and he said because it was only a newspaper report.
"I said I had similar information from independent sources and he said that if I did not withdraw it he
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.