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RUSSO-JAPANESE CONVENTION

ARTICLE IV

The High Contracting Parties mutually declare that there actually exists no treaty or agreement of military alliance nor any other secret agreement which either of them has entered into with any third Party and which constitutes an infringement upon, or a menace to, the sovereignty, territorial rights or national safety of the other Contracting Party.

ARTICLE V

The present Protocol is to be considered as ratified with the ratification of the Convention embodying Basic Rules of the Relations between Japan and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, signed under the same date.

In witness whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the present Protocol in duplicate in the English language, and have affixed thereto their seals.

Done at Peking, this Twentieth day of January, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-five.

[L.S.] K. Yoshizawa.

[L.S.] L. KARAKHAN.

PROTOCOL (B)

The High Contracting Parties have agreed upon the following as the basis for the Concession Contracts to be concluded within five months from the date of the complete evacuation of Northern Saghalien by Japanese troops, as provided for in Article 3 of Protocol (A) signed this day between the Plenipotentiaries of Japan and of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

1. The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics agrees to grant to Japanese concerns recommended by the Government of Japan, the concession for the exploitation of 50 per cent. in area of each of the oil fields in Northern Sag- halien which are mentioned in the Memorandum submitted to the Representative of the Union by the Japanese Representative on August 29th, 1924. For the purpose of determining the area to be leased to the Japanese concerns for such exploitation, each of the said oil fields shall be divided into checker-board squares of from fifteen to forty dessiatines each, and a number of these squares representing 50 per cent. of the whole area shall be alloted to the Japanese, it being understood that the squares to be so leased to the Japanese are, as a rule, to be non-contiguous to one another, but shall include all the wells now being drilled or worked by the Japanese.

With regard to the remaining unleased lots of the oil fields mentioned in the said Memo- randum, it is agreed that should the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics decide to offer such lots, wholly or in part, for foreign concession, Japanese concerns shall be afforded equal opportunity in the matter of such concession.

2.-The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics also agrees to authorise Japanese concerns recommended by the Government of Japan to prospect oil fields, for a period of from five to ten years, on the Eastern coast of Northern Saghalien over an area of one thousand square versts to be selected within one year after the conclusion of the Concession Contracts, and in case oil fields shall have been established in consequence of such prospecting by the Japanese, the Concession for the exploitation of the 50 per cent. in area of the oil fields so established shall be granted to the Japanese.