Thursday, 17 January

I studied Italian on my own. I decided to use Hugo’s Italian Simplified first, studying its grammar well, and then use the recordings of Assimil to practise. If I could learn in this way, I thought I could be successful in half a year. This time when I visited Italy, the simple conversations I know seemed to be enough for everyday use.

The Soviet Union has declared that it would restrict the travel of foreigners again. The areas restricted encircling Moscow would be reduced from fifty kilometers to forty. Twenty-two cities not allowing foreigners from entry were newly-added. Yarozlavl, Karkov, Pottava, Kirovgrad, Pskov, Vitebizk were all included.

The Milwaukee Journal reported that from the early 1950s the United States had helped Taiwan and Chiang’s government to launch reform in the village. The result of the cooperation was very good. The rent for farmland had decreased by thirty per cent. The status of tenants was stable. There were many co-operatives. The system of tax and levies were so reformed that the government received ten to thirty per cent more revenue. The American government only spent twenty million US dollars on the scheme. If this type of work could have been done earlier, the Chinese Communists would not have been able to win in the Mainland.

British public opinion has expressed suspicion with regard to the declaration by the Japanese Prime Minister that he intends to suggest to the Japanese Diet that they form a treaty with the Nationalist Government. It said that Japanese commerce will not develop towards Mainland China, and it must develop in other places elsewhere. In this sense, Britain would not be able to compete with Japan in these places, so Britain was quite eager to make Japan join into agreement with the Chinese Communists. Such wishful calculation was simply ridiculous.