American Interests

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 96, 26 April 1939, Page 12

American Interests

“America has always been ready to undertake more definite responsibilities in Pacific affairs than in those of any other part of tho world. Do you agree?” asked Sir Frederick Whyte in a rec-ent broadcast talk. Professor C. K. Webster replied: “Not entirely. At this moment, America’s greatest interest is in Europe, where she sees principles at stake which perhaps mean even more to her than to us. But of course you are right in trinking that the United States has b'ccn more ready to take definite responsibilites toward the Far East than toward Europe. In thut sense, the general order of American interest is first her own continent, including South America, then the Fa- East, and then Europe. I remember that at a conference on Far Eastern affairs at San Francisco an American exclaimed: 1 We Americans left Europe for our own good, and we have been marching away from her ever since.' I pointed out that, the world being a round one, if you continued to march awa, from Europe you got back to Europe again. And tho route lies, of course, through the Far East, whose fate for tho last half-century, and never more than today, has been linked up with tho play of forces in the European world.”