46 THE ASSASSIN'S SHADOW LIES ACROSS JAPAN

their national policy. To-day the peoples of the world have set
their faith in a new order of which the treaties are a symbol.

This was just about as far as the Advertiser could go without being
confiscated and it showed a certain amount of courage on the part of
Fleisher, who has to watch his step pretty carefully.

These comments are not, currently, particularly interesting, but I
think a diary should set forth, more or less, what one is thinking at
the time it is written. History is a continuous unfolding panorama,
and in later years it may be valuable to be able to furnish a little
colour and atmosphere to a particular scene of the past.

THE NATIONAL CITY BANK AFFAIR

September 10, 1932

To-day was largely taken up with the National City Bank affair.
The matter would be ludicrous if it were not serious. The bank in
New York had instructed its various branches throughout the Far
East—in China, Manila, Singapore, etc., quite as much as in Japan
—to forward photographs of the business sections in their respective
cities in order to indicate the modern building progress in those
ities. In Osaka the Japanese gendarmes suddenly asked the local
branch of the bank to stop taking these photographs and shortly
thereafter the Japanese press, not only in Osaka but throughout the
entire country, carried sensational headlines and many columns of
print charging the bank with taking these photographs (although in
strict accord with Japanese laws and regulations) for the purpose of
furnishing the United States Government with plans for bombing
these districts in case of war. The matter on the face of it was absurd
because these photographs of these same spots can be bought in the
open shops, and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Yokohama
had recently circulated in the United States a pamphlet containing
similar photographs for purposes of business propaganda. The
action of the bank was in fact in the interests of the Japanese them-
selves. But the poison immediately worked its course : at least one
Japanese member of the staff of the bank has resigned, threatening
letters and visits from patriotic societies calling for wholesale resigna-
tions are being received, so that the bank's prestige and business
will inevitably suffer, even if its personnel and property undergo no
damage.

Shiratori as usual indulged in some high-flown language to the
newspaper correspondents. I sent Colonel Mcllroy ^esterday to see
some high officers in the War Office, since that ministry is in charge
of the gendarmerie which apparently started the trouble, and to
ask that an official statement be issued absolving the bank from
blame, but the officers seemed merely amused and refused to take
the matter seriously. Yesterday, also, Curtis of the bank had a long
talk with Arita, who seemed sympathetic, but when he asked that