Tokyo Holds Up Internees' Exchange Pending Probe of Jap Camps in U.S.

SPANISH TO INVESTIGATE FOR NIPPON

By United Press.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13.--The Japanese government has refused to exchange any more Allied internees held in the Far East until Spanish diplomats investigate conditions in the internment and relocation camps for Japanese and Japanese-Americans in this country, it was learned today.

The Spanish diplomats represent Japan here.

The Japanese, it was said, are particularly anxious for a report on conditions at the Tule Lake, Calif., internment camps, where alien Japanese and disloyal Japanese-Americans are held. There were several riots there last month. A Dies. Subcommittee has been investigating the disturbances.

7,000 Seek to Return

Any of the 110,000 internees can apply to return to Japan. It was understood that about 7,000 of those at Tule Lake have made such applications, or are members of families for which application has been made. About 40 per cent of those interned at Tule Lake are aliens.

The United States, it was learned, will place no impediment in the way of the Spanish investigators. Under the Geneva convention for the treatment of war prisoners, to which this country is a party, the authority to make such an investigation is given automatically to the neutral power which is looking after the interests of one belligerent in the territory of another.

Japs Want Report First

The Spanish investigation, it was said, need not necessarily delay a third exchange of United Nations nationals with Japan, since these negotiations are always intricate and protracted. But Japan, it was said, has made clear that the exchange itself could not be made until the report is received.

Two exchanges have been made in the past, the last being completed early this month when the Swedish repatriation ship Gripsholm arrived in New York. The first exchange was made more than a year ago.