relations between Japan and Britain. "I hope you would fully discuss and investigate the draft of this pact. ♦ # * !"EXPLANATION OF THE FOREIGN MINISTER (AHITA) AS TO THE CONCLUSION OF JAPANESE- GERMAN PACT AT THE INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE OF PRIVY COUNCIL (NOVEMBER 13, 1936) * * * "III. As I have told you just now, the armed intervention by the Soviet Union and the promotion of the Comintern's Bolshevist activities in the Far East constitute a direct threat to the safety of Japan and Manchuria and also a very difficult obstacle to the execution of Japan's East Asia policy, so we must j recognize that a counter-measure for them is the most | urgent and important question among all the various j external problems now confronting Japan. "Since such is the present situationa the present Government has made it the pivotal point of its foreign » gollcy to frustrate the Soviet Union's schemes of aggrandizement and to check the advance of Comintern Bolshevization in East Asia." * * *