MASTER PLAN FOR PACIFIC BASES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 139, 9 March 1943, Page 5

MASTER PLAN FOR PACIFIC BASES

View In Washington REASONS STATED BY OFFICIAL

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received March 8, 10.50 p.m.)

WASHINGTON, March 7.

A master plan envisioning the use of Pacific bases after the war as “filling stations for a big Pacific fleet and for American trade with the Orient” has been unfolded to the Press by Representative Magnuson, the chairman of the Naval Affairs Subcommittee of the House of Representatives. Mr. Magnuson explained that the eub-committee is determining what bases the navy needs and what must be done to ensure American rights to their use after the war.

Referring to the Japanese bases in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Mr. Magnuson said, “We know some we need, and we are not going to worry how to get them; we will just take them. However, the State Department must open discussions in other cases in order to see that the navy’s needs are met.”

Mr. Magnuson emphasized that the plan did not intend to force or coerce friendly Powers into giving up possessions in the Pacific, and he said that a sensible and equitable arrangement was possible. New Zealand, Australia, China and Holland were displaying a desire to participate in the programme, he stated. A Chinese military spokesman bad informally welcomed the idea of American naval and air bases close to China, and the Soviet officials had been disabused of a fear of Imperialism. Mr. Magnuson concluded: “The Pacific will be our post-war responsibility. Some people say that the programme smacks of Yankee Imperialism, but that is not true. The United States wants only to assure peaceful Pacific islands, and we must obtain the tools that are necessary to carry out this responsibility.”

The title to the Gilbert Islands, which Mr. Magnuson is reported to have grouped with the Marshall Islands in his reference to Japanese bases, belongs to'Britain. With the Ellice Islands they were claimed by Britain in 1892, and up to the Japanese invasion were administered as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony. Mr. Magnuson’s reference may have been in error due to the fact, that the Japanese for nearly a year have been in occupation of the northern Gilberts.