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reverse was the case. Recently two British residents of long standing, in preparation for their permanent departure, sold their houses-in both cases the purchasers were German.
10. In spite of sundry petty pin-pricks from minor police and other officials, and the hostile tone of the press, the personal relations between British residents and leading Japanese continue to be friendly, but contacts have become rare, owing, perhaps, to the rigid economy which the Japanese are officially enjoined
to exercise.
11. It is gratifying to be able to record that during the European crisis of September, British residents, in spite of their anxieties, arising, in particular, from the feeling that in certain contingencies they would be caught like rats in a trap, remained steadfast and calm in the best British tradition.
VI.-BIRTHDAY OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING.
The birthday of His Majesty The King was celebrated on the 9th June by an official reception at His Majesty's Consulate in the forenoon and by a garden-party in the afternoon. The reception was attended by leading foreigners and by all the principal Japanese civil and military authorities, and British residents were particularly pleased by the action of Mr. Yosuke Matsuoka, president of the South Manchuria Railway Company, who came by air from Mukden in the morning purposely to attend, returning then by air in the after- noon. The garden-party was attended by about 130 ladies and gentlemen of all nationalities, including prominent Japanese officials and their wives.
VII. NAVAL VISITS.
13. No visits were paid to Dairen or Port Arthur during the year by His Majesty's ships.
VIII. IMPERIAL AND OFFICIAL VISITS.
14. From the 12th to 14th May the Italian Fascist Mission stayed in Dairen on their way from North China to Shanghai. They were received with tremendous but strictly regimented éclat, and the city was decorated with thousands of Italian and Japanese flags. The members of the mission, both on official and unofficial occasions, were guarded as though they went in imminent peril of assassination, and British and other business houses along the route which they followed in procession were compelled by the police to lower their window blinds. An attempt to impose a similar measure on the premises of His Majesty's Consulate was successfully resisted.
15. Between the 23rd and 28th June, Her Imperial Highness Princess Nashimoto, as proxy for Her Majesty the Empress of Japan, visited the Kwantung Leased Territory for the purpose of "comforting" wounded soldiers. The programme arranged by the local authorities seemed to assign more time to sightseeing than visiting hospitals, and to the outside observer the occasion was chiefly notable for the fantastic measures taken by the police, which daily para- lysed traffic and even the work of the harbour for hours at time. The offensive attitude of the police toward His Majesty's Consulate is described in section XIII below.
IX.-PRESS AND PROPAGANDA.
16. There is nothing to add to last year's annual report on the subject of the official control of the press and its distortion of news relating to Far Eastern affairs. The newspapers continue to be unfriendly in their references to the British Empire, and there has recently been a more unfriendly tone in their references to the United States. Nearly all the news items on the subject of Palestine are reproduced from the propagandist German Transocean Agency. By contrast, German and Italian affairs are reported with marked adulation.
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