WAR LIKELY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 123, 20 November 1941, Page 10

WAR LIKELY

BRITISH VISITOR'S VIEWS

JAPANESE AMBITIONS

(0.C.) AUCKLAND. This Day. The firm belief that war will break out between Japan and the United States is held by a British business man who was visiting Auckland yesterday on his way to Britain after living for many years in Japan. "It will be the best fhing that has ever happened for Janan," he said. "She suffers from acute swelled-headedness. and her regeneration along normal and profitable lines will only come from her inevitable defeat."

"There will be war with the United States, and the American Senator who said that the American fleet, would finish the Japanese fleet in 20 minutes or so is talking through his hat. They have a strong fleet. It has been untouched by the war with China. Construction has been surrounded by mystery just as much in Japan as in otherparts of the world, but it would be silly to believe that Japan has not a very strong navy. Too, her sailors are good. They come from an island race "1 cannot speak about their gunnery, but I should say their seamanship is first-class. However, when Japan enters war against the United States the horrible Japan of today will disappear and a new Japan, the Japan which the Japanese people want, will arise." Discussing Japan's territorial ambitions, he said Japan had not; yet

considered that New Zealand was in her co-prosperity sphere. It looked rather to Canada, the Northern Territory of Australia, the Philippine Islands. Thailand, and the Dutch East Indies. It also wanted Siberia, and when Japan wanted a country it wanted its land, all that grew on it. and all that grew under it.

Thailand was the key to quite a number of things, and so far Japan iad been content to light a dipU

war against it. Of course, this country was dangerously near Malaya, but he believed Japan would not enter it unless she became quite indifferent to war with the A.B.C.D. Powers, the name she gave to the Allied democracies. However, there was no doubt that the Japanese generals wan tec war, and the people would be obedient to them until the bombs began to fall on their homes.

"The nation as a whole," he continued, "is sick and tired of war and of those who wage it, but they are gagged because they know that the least sign of dissension or of timid criticism will brand them as Communists and that they will be sent to prison for an indefinite period.