U.S.A. HOLDS KEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 148, 26 June 1939, Page 7

U.S.A. HOLDS KEY.

FAR EAST SITUATION.

American Intervention Feared

By Japan.

LONDON PRESS OPINIONS. Independent Cnblo Service. LONDON'. June 22. The British nml French Press is stressing that America's attitude in the key to the Far Eastern situation.

Unleßs America officially join* Britain and France, Japan is unlikely to retreat from her demand that the Tientsin dispute be settled on the army's terms.

Japan fears American intervention because of her belief that British economic reprisals would not be effective unless America acted in concert.

Writing in the "Daily Express," Lord Beaverbrook declares: "I have always taken the view that Americans arc not deeply concerned in the European situation, and that it "would not be easy to bring them over the Atlantic for the defence of liberty.

'But I am also convinced, as a native •f that American continent, and for long « resident on the American boundary, that if war breaks out, Japan will have to face immediately the American naval forces, and all the strength and resources of the United States. The reason is not far to seek. Americans will not permit that menace to become * terror.

The London "Daily Mail" calls for Arm Cabinet action. '"Tientsin has been on the way since Japan asked for help in building a battle fleet—and built it with the assistance of Queen Victoria's Admiralty," the paper says.

"t has been due ever since Japan aecided that the little group of islands with a growing population should not wmfine its energies when there was an overseas empire ready to he conquered.

M. Tientsin crisis did not start at *"e end of | a «t week. Ft. started at the « n « of l„st century. The Cabinet is Wtthinking an one man on the latest n »is. Such a challenge does not invite It must he met with the nrmest and clearest answer."