EYES ON EUROPE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20140, 9 January 1940, Page 9

EYES ON EUROPE

PEOPLES OF PACIFIC WAR OUTCOME AWAITED CHINA OVERSHADOWED PRESTIGE OF EMPIRE (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. “Paradoxically the ultimate outcome of events in China and the rest of the Far East depends on the European war,” said Mr. Ivan Palmer, a former Auckland journalist, who returned by the Mariposa to-day on a brief visit after four years of adventures in the Far East. He said that in French Indo-China and the Philippines on the way from Singapore to Auckland he found the native peoples reading the news of the developments in Europe more avidly than the news of the Sino-Japanese war which was on their very doorstep. “Britain’s stand against aggression has done a tremendous lot for British prestige in the East,” said Mr. Palmer. “What has impressed the Asiatic peoples particularly is the splendid way in which all the countries of the Empire have rallied to Britain’s cause.”

Mr. Palmer said that the land and air defences play an important part in the defence' of this strategic stronghold. It was no secret that there were thousands of trained soldiers there to do their part should the Pacific become a theatre of war for the British Empire.