ABSTRACT
THE task of preparing the draft report under paragraph 4 of Article XV was entrusted by the Committee of Nineteen to a sub-Committee of Nine. During the preparation of the document, the Japanese delegation submitted fresh proposals to the Committee of Nineteen. These were not acceptable to the Committee, but, in order to clarify the situation, the Committee asked Japan on February 9th, 1933, if she accepted, as one of the bases of the contemplated conciliation, the principle in Chapter IX of the Lytton Commission’s Report regarding the establishment in Manchuria of a large measure of autonomy consistent with the sovereignty and administrative integrity of China. The Japanese delegation replied on February 14th expressing its Government’s conviction that the maintenance and recognition of Manchukuo constituted the only guarantee of peace in the Far East, and that the whole question would eventually be solved between Japan and China on that basis. In view of that negative reply the Committee of Nineteen came to the decision that it had exhausted all possible efforts at conciliation. It thereupon completed its approval of the draft report for submission to the Assembly on February 21st.
