PACT EXPLAINED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 304, 1 October 1940, Page 3

PACT EXPLAINED

NOT TO PROVOKE ATTACK. 4 \ QUESTION OF THE SOVIET. (United Press Association—Copyright.) TOKIO, September 30. The Foreign Office spokesman (Mr Y. Suma) said that notwithstanding the German - Italian - Japanese agreement, Japan would make an effort diplomatically to settle JapaneseAmerican questions. Hd reiterated that the pact was. defensive and was not intended to provoke attack on other Powers.

Asked if German warships entering the Pacific would be accorded special facilities, he replied: “That is not stipulated in the treaty.”

Mr Suma was asked if a declaration of war was necessary in regard to the mutual-assistance clause in the pact, and he replied that the signatories would decide when “war was inolved.”

In reply to a question as to whether Japan w T as making any effort toward a non-aggression agreement with the Soviet, he answered: “That is too delicate a matter to take up.”

CANNOT BE DISREGARDED. CHALLENGE TO ANOTHER WAR MORE BRITISH COMMENT. LONDON, September 29.

Commenting on the new German-Italian-Japanese pact, the “ Sunday Times” says: “The alliance is, of course, aimed at America. Japan hopes jt will deter Mr Roosevelt from action in the Pacific, and Germany and Italy that it will prevent him coming to the aid of Britain. “It is not the least likely to be influential either way, and does not represent any substantial change in the. pre - existing situation. Japan is fully occupied with the China war and cannot expect help on her side of the world from the European dictators, nor can Germany and Italy look for aid from Japan. America will not be frightened by Hitler’s redressing of his war facade.”

Mr J. L. Garvin, writing in the “Observer,” says: “To belittle the significance of the new triple alliance would be the absurdity of ‘ ostrichism” Its mischief for a time may soon become equal to its ambition. It is a challenge to another world war embracing all the continents more completely than the last; yet when we look to the end this grandiose treaty is like a flamboyant prospectus of a new suicide club.

“This document of historical importance, as Yon Ribbentrop calls it. is as directly anti-American as antiBritish. At the same time it is covertly anti-Russian. To grip the Soviet Empire in a vice as a means of holding it to good behaviour from the Near East to the Far East is a chief object transparently veiled.” The new order referred to in the agreement is, observes Mr Garvin, another name for the old business of despotism, force, conquest and exploitation.