MENAGE OF JAPAN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 285, 2 December 1941, Page 3

MENAGE OF JAPAN

PACIFIC POSITION WARNING BY CANADIAN The situation in the Pacific was discussed this morning by Dr. McMaster Kerr, Minister of Robertson Presbyterian Church, Vancouver, visitin £ Auckland. "I have lived for some years in Vancouver » e Japanese menace is serious, he said, "and I have had an, opportunity of studying the Japanese at first hand. For months the situation in the Far East has teen dangerously unsettled. In July 3®, United States, in co-operation with Britain and the refugee Dutch (government, cracked down on Japan with a vengeance and cut off all important avenues to raw material supplies which Japan desperately needs. Seventy-five per cent of Japan's imports have come from the United States, Britain and the Dutch East Indies. Almost all that is stopped. Desperate Position "Japan is in a desperate position and must do something soon. America does not care how soon, for she knows that she has the best navy and the best fleet in the Pacific, and Japan knows that too. Americans are more aroused and incensed over Japan than Germany. The Japanese have driven out their schools and mission work and all the industrial establishments that were doing very well there. It is recognised that their object is to drive the United States out of Manchuria, North China and out of China. They want to take the Dutch East Indies and certainly would like to take Singapore, in which New Zealand has a large investment. In a word, until there is a showdown, Japan and Germany are winning at the expense of the United States.

"Japan is playifig Germany's game at the present time by holding America's forces quiet in the Pacific. She has been bluffing Washington's State Department and helping to keep the fleet in the Pacific. Public feeling runs in the direction of saying, 'let's knock out Japan now by a definite showdown, and tell them to get out of the Pacific.' I suppose New Zealand and Australia would say 'Amen' to that, certainly we in Canada would echo it."