WEST INDIAN ISLANDS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 209, 2 August 1940, Page 2

WEST INDIAN ISLANDS.

AMERICAN INTERVENTION. NEW YORK, July 31. The Daily News publishes a copyrighted exclusive story which states that the Pan-American Conference at Havana agreed (and the step only awaits ratification) to a plan by the Pan-American nations for the United States to send a naval expedition to the Caribbean Sea early in September. The object will be to impose a trusteeship bn the French and Dutch possessions, thus liquidating a war in the West Indies/ bottling up the oil refineries of the Dutch Island of Aruba which have been important suppliers to Germany, impounding 250,000,000 dollars of gold in Martinique, demilitarising the French naval units and repurchasing the 100 United States military 'planes there for resale to Britain. A Havana report savs the conference adjourned sine die after all delegates had signed the convention and also the “Act of Havana.”

The United States Secretary of State (Air Hull) has issued a statement stressing that “at no time has any American nation had the slightest thought of taking advantage of the European situation for the purpose of grabbing territory.” Referring to certain Governments’ subversive activities in the Western Hemisphere, Air Hull made the charge that “pursuing these policies, the personnel of their diplomatic and consular missions has increased out of all proportion to their needs for legitimate functions.”