ABSTRACT
ON OCTOBER 7, 1929, Honorable Arthur Henderson, British secretary of state for foreign affairs, handed a note to His Excellency Tsuneo Matsudaira, Japanese ambassador in London, inviting the Japanese participation in the Naval Limitation Conference to be held in January, 1930.1 The full text was published in the vernacular press on October 9.2
The press generally welcomed the move on the part of the British government as a timely one, expressing no surprise at the move at this time and urging a political solution of the problem. The leading press of the country emphasized the importance of appointing an influential statesman to head the delegation so that the solution of the problem of limiting naval armaments be approached from the broad standpoint of sound statesmanship rather than handled solely by technical experts.3
