AXIS CUNNING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 99, 26 March 1942, Page 4

AXIS CUNNING.

Exl'Erience in many countries has shown that wherever the tie of diplomatic association with the Axis Powers is retained the neutral nation may expect penetration by these countries under every guise enemy cuuning can conceive. For a long time the Latin-American States have seen the menace of Nazi penetration in various guises in their midst. Some have taken drastic stems to deal with it since the brotherhood of all the American nations has been made more manifest, but in others there has been noticeable lukewarmth in answering the warnings they have beeu given of enemy activity. The news published this week that the Brazilian authorities have seized a letter containing the information that a well-equipped Japanese Army of 25,000 men is in Brazil awaiting orders from Tokio occasions no surprise, except that it may contain the element of exaggeration as to numbers. The letter was taken from a Brazilianborn Japanese and related to detailed plans for thousands of Japanese inhabitants to take over the State of Sao Paulo and later the whole of Brazil. It sets out also the remarkable extent of the organisation on a military basis. Records show that Japanese immigration to Brazil began only in 1908, but by 1939 the total reached close' on 200,000. The immigration of Asiatics to that country is one of the chief features of population movements in the present century, and the Japanese influx is the result of very carefully planned colonisation. Sao Paulo adjoins the State of Rio de Janeiro and is an area of great industrial activity. The stirring up of.strife there by the Japanese' would eminently suit Nazi organisations in other parts of South America which have not perhaps made as much headway as they would have desired. Meanwhile, the Brazilians are incensed at the sinking of one of their merchant ships and antiAxis demonstrations have occurred. How the reported secret army of Japan would fare in an attempt to seize part of the country or all of it is a matter for conjecture, but it is not bevond the 'trickery of the Axis schemes.