Commenting on the British refusal to deliver the four suspects to the Japanese and Chinese authorities of the municipality, the statement declared that there would be no use in resuming negotiations.
At an emergency meeting yesterday the Tientsin Press Association issued a statement appealing to British authorities to change their attitude on the concession question, and calling on Chinese residents of the city to make a firm stand in tine with the action of Japanese authorities.
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The statement expressed regret tha. the measures taken by the Cheng." The four men, he asserted, were temporarily handed over, at the request of the Japanese authorities, to the Japanese gendarmerie for questioning. Each suspect was examined in a separate room, and at the conclusion of the interrogation the statements were compared "and without doubt the confessions established the men as those responsible for the shooting of Mr. Cheng.
The men were returned to the British Municipal Police, Mr. Tashiro continued, and British police officers and Japanese gendarmes later reconstructed the crime at the Grand' Theatre. During a breakfast at the Tientsin Race Club that morning, according to Mr. Tashiro, the British police officials admitted that the reconstruction tallied with the "confess sions" and they "hoped to be able to hand the men over" after the matter had been referred to London.
British authorities in connection with the concession question constituted a "complete rejection of a new order in East Asia."
Members of the association comprise all Japanese newspaper and news agency men residing in the city.—Domei
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.