Tokyo, May 21.
Japan will send two more exchange students to Italy next month in accordance with its policy to strengthen the ties of culture and friendship between the two countries. Mr. Kan Tashiro, 31, and Mr. Fumie Tsunoda, 27, assistants in the medical department of Kyushu Imperial University, and the literary department of Kyoto University respectively, have been chosen to make the trip.—Domei. bankers containing a warning on the matter.
The spurious notes, presumably exported in accordance with the wishes of official German quarters, are alleged to bear on both sides signs which would be easily recognized by German banks and which would show that the notes had been imported from abroad against the regulations, the export and import of Reichsbank notes now being illegal.
Yet, although French quarters say that a large number of these notes have been placed on the English market for purchase of foreign exchange, London banking houses specializing in dealings in foreign notes are unable to report having handled any of them.
Neither can they understand why the German authorities should have connived at the export of notes marked in this way.
It should be understood that there is a regular illegal traffic in German bank notes. These are obtainable in London and continental centres at a rate of about 36 marks to the pound and are taken by various persons who have payments of one kind or another to make in Germany. The notes have, of course, to be illegally imported, but after allowing for the 10 to 15 per cent. commission which has to be paid to the person who undertakes the risky and specialized task of carrying the notes over the frontier, the buyer is still able to meet his payments far more cheaply than if he took exchange at the official "free" rate of 11.67.
It seems hardly feasible that the German authorities would attempt to gain foreign exchange by the deliberate export and subsequent confication of such notes, The amount te be gained by a swindle of this kind would be hardly sufficient to justify the trouble.
The notes might be marked, of course, in the hope of tracking down those responsible for the illegal practice of importing notes. As the actual importer, however, never presents the notes at a bank, it is doubtful whether efforts of this kind would meet with any success.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.