Tokyo, Feb. 18, Entrusted by the German Foreign Minister, Herr Joachim von Ribbentrap, to examine the present state and future prospects of German-Japanese relations, Herr Emil Hilfferich, Direc-for of the Hamburg-Amerika Linie, arrived here on February 13 and will probably remain for several months as the German Foreign Minister's special envoy.
The Asama Maru affair is said to be the motive behind the German decision to send a sort of Ambassador extraordinary to Japan.
The Wilhelmstrasse, worried since last September by the trend of official relations between Berlin and Tokyo and even more so by the "cold shoulder" being shown the Reich by the Japanese masses, considered the solution of the Asama Maru affair as a diplomatic defeat for the Reich and an indication that the plans tending to bring Japan's policy to follow that of the totalitarian states are becoming more and more seriously jeopardized.—Havas, River Opening to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.