Tokyo, June 5.
Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin changed his pawn on the international political chessboard when he shifted M. Maxim Litvinoff, veteran Foreign Affairs Commissar, for M.V. Molotoff. in the opinion of Mr, Haruhiko Nishi, Counsellor of the Japanese Embassy in Moscow, who returned here yesterday from the U.S.S.R.
Mu, Nishi tended to deprecate the view that M. Litvinoff resigned because of a conflict of views with M. Stalin regarding the proposed alliance of the Soviets with France and Great Britain.
"Extreme secrecy surrounds the very cautious attitude of the Soviets towards the proposed accord." Mr. Nishi said. "Any outsider is likely to be mistaken in making a prediction on the subject."
The Japanese - diplomat also minimized reports of a possible German-Soviet rapprochement. "It seems to me that the rumours arose out of the present trade negotiations now under way between the U.S.S.R. and the Third Reich. When it comes to business any country seems to forget its ideology.
"With the present Soviet-German trade accord due to expire in 1940, we shall probably be told of the character of the present conversations when the proper time arrives, very much in the same manner as the character of the Italian-Soviet discussions Jast year" Mr, Nishi stated.
Japan, Mr. Nishi continued, would have to press her "just demands" on the Soviets regarding the fisheries question. It was "inconceivable," he added, that the Moscow Government would deny Japan's rights as stipulated in the Portsmouth Treaty. It could. however, disagree with Japan in the manner in which the latter executed such rights—Domei Three Men Killed in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.