AMERICAN VIEW

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21604, 5 January 1945, Page 5

AMERICAN VIEW

AID IN THE PACIFIC OTHER SIDE~OF PICTURE REALITIES OVERLOOKED Unpalatable although they might be for British populations in the Pacific, there is no doubt that opinions which have been expressed by members of the American Naval Affairs Sub-Committee about the future sovereignty of certain Pacific islands are widely held by many thousands of the Americans who have served in the campaigns against the Japanese. It can be expected that these opinions will be voiced with increasing frequency in the United States, They create a problem which has to be faced by all the other nations with territorial, economic and military interests in the regions which have been fought over since 1941. These opinions were first heard away back in 1942, even before the first Amercian assault—which before during and after the landing received essential aid from British, New Zealand and Australian experts, as well as from uncounted loyal British natives —was launched against Guadalcanal'. With every successive assault the same opinions were to be heard from all types, ranks and conditions of Americans. They corresponded exactly not only with the committeemen’s view that the United States should retain bases in the Pacific, but also—with the addition of an application to New Zealand—with the opinion that there was no indication that the United States had any assistance from the British, French and Dutch. Finally, there were many Americans who took away from New Zealand the view that this country was not hurting itself in the degree of help given against the Japanese. Important Factors Avoided These opinions and attitudes would probably qualify in the United States for the same description as that given to the outlook of the returned members of the Naval Affairs Sub-Com-mittee, which, according to the New York Daily News, is one of “chastened realism.” However, their mood of “chastened realism” avoids a number of other realities which they could not or did not care to discover. One is overlooked by Mr. Ward Johnson when he urges that the United States should hold all the Pacific bases it takes, irrespective of previous ownership. With the exception of the attacks against Saipan, Guam and the Marshalls, it is difficult to think of any American assault in the Pacific which has not received direct aid from Britain. New Zealand, Australia and other countries who were interested in the Pacific long before the United Stales was brought into the war. Moreover, the only islands which the Americans have completely “taken” are those where military demands made it necessary for the whole island to he cleared of the Japanese. In other cases, it has been left for the future to determine who shall be responsible for rounding up the many thousands of Japanese survivors whom the American strategy, against which no criticism is offered, by-passed and cut off from their bases. In these cases, it is generally expected that Britain and her Dominions will have to furnish the solution of the problem. Much Aid Given Here are a few of the ways in which Britain, New Zealand, Australia, British Crown colonies and other Pacific countries have helped the Americans in the strategy—governed by the common council of the United Nations —employed against the Japanese: In man-power, to a degree which compares more than favourably on a population basis with the American contribution, preponderant although it naturally has been in the Pacific; in supplies of foodstuffs, to an extent which is stated by official American figures to represent 90 per cent of all food consumed by the American forces in the South and South-west Pacific, areas; in such other goods and services as boots, clothing, hospitals, barracks, various other buildings, repair facilities for ships and different types of war material; and rest and recreational amenities and hospitality; and in information which was obtainable only from British, Dominion, Crown colony and native sources. Self-determination Issue To the first and to the last, manpower and information, some of the American successes in the several island campaigns are directly attributable, and these successes opened the door for further successes, which in their turn led to, or at the least, eased and hastened, the victories in the Philippines, Saipan and Guam. It is not suggested that the nonAmerican share of the war against the Japanese in the Pacific has been of over-riding importance, but it has been of sufficient importance to merit more than the casual dismissal given to It by Mr. Johnson. Associated with this dismissal is the suggestion for a “clarification of the issue of self-determination for Pacific natives.” This is a typically American formula, easily said and persuasively phrased. If it refers only to those natives whom the Americans have freed in the former Japanese mandates in the Marshalls and Marianas, where American civil affairs officers are already practising, apparently with much success, an American type of military-civil government which might well outlast the war, the formula need not be regarded as a further expression of the growing American opinion that the map of the Pacific is wrongly coloured in many places. Natives’ Spontaneous Loyalty However, it is such an expression if it embraces islands under British, New Zealand, Australian, French and Dutch sovereignty. In some cases the Americans were not the first to form the opinion that the sovereign Powers W ere not always as faithful to the interests of the native inhabitants as they should have been, and it is certainly true that the events of the past three years have emphasised problems which should be faced by the United Nations in concert after the war. However, a headlong formula of the type written by the American committeemen, after an • apparently superficial study of events and places, merely invites an equally facile destruction, and how easily it can be destroyed by citing the loyalty to the Allied cause which native population after native population lias shown in Ihe same three years. If self-determination were an issue with these natives—supposing that they were politically advanced enough for an offer of self-determination to mean much 1o them —it could reasonably have been expected flint this loyally would not have been so spontaneous and would have been accompanied by demands for political reward. Of these, there has been no trace.