Foreign News: Explanations

Kenkichi Yoshizawa, lately Ambassador to France, new Foreign Minister of Japan, arrived in Tokyo last week. After changing his clothes in the gentlemen’s wash room of the Tokyo railroad station, he paid his respects to his Emperor. The Foreign Office took the occasion to publish ostentatiously the full text of a secret treaty that has been no secret to the world Press ever since strife started in Manchuria last fall.

In 1905, at the close of the Russo-Japanese war, the coral-and-sapphire-buttoned mandarins of Her Celestial Majesty the Empress Dowager signed a treaty guaranteeing the security of Japanese subjects in Manchuria, promising not to construct any Chinese railroads parallel to the Japanese-controlled South Manchuria Railway or prejudicial to its interest. At China’s request, the terms of the treaty were kept secret. The world has long known of its existence. Violation of it was Japan’s excuse to the world for the invasion of Manchuria. Last week it was published.

Foreign Minister Yoshizawa’s first official duty was to proffer yet another explanation. He answered Secretary Stimson’s note of Jan. 7 which invoked the Kellogg anti-war pact and the Nine Power Treaty guaranteeing China’s integrity. Other nations failed notably to back the Stimson stand, but Kenkichi Yoshizawa returned a soft answer: Japan would never, never dream of annexing Manchuria, and as for the policy of the “Open Door” in China, the Japanese Government promised to maintain it “in so far as they can secure it.”

Meanwhile, besides raiding Tsingtao (see below) Japan continued to fight in Manchuria. For once Chinese made serious resistance. A ragged volunteer force of about 5,000 men rose out of the frozen plains, captured the Japan-held railway junction of Tahushan. killed 200 men, then rubbed out a little Japanese detachment at Chinsi. It was a short triumph. Japanese reinforcements rolled up from Mukden, wreaked swift, bloody vengeance.