Defence Problems in South Pacific

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 4, 6 January 1941, Page 4

Defence Problems in South Pacific

American Journalists On Survey Visit WATCHING JAPAN’S SOUTHWARD DRIVE Per Pres* Association. AUCKLAND, Jan. 5. Two well-known American newspapermen arrived at Auckland by Pan-Ameri-Airways' Honolulu clipper. They were Mr. W. W. Waymack, editor of the Des Moines Register and Tribune, lowa, aud Mr. Carroll Binder, foreign editor of the Chicago Daily News. They will leave to-morrow for (Sydney by the Tasman Empire Airways' flying boat Aotearoa aud will return to New Zealand later for the purpose of surveying Dominion conditions and outlook. Mr. Binder said they are going to Australia to familiarise themselves with Australian attitudes and conditions, especially as they applied to United States interests. Included in the survey they hoped to make was the attitude to Australians to defence problems. (Similar objects would be followed when they returned to New Zealand. Mr. Waymack, who is a p utilizer prize-winner, and Mr. Binder do not intend to follow the itinerary of a number of American newspapermen who paid a short visit to New Zealand several mouths ago, and they will not continue as far as the East. They said they preferred to make as comprehensive a survey as possible of New Zealand and Australia, both having visited the East before. Speaking of the attitude of the American people to the recent Japanese statements, Mr. Waymack said the expansion of Japan southward was viewed with very general concern and whatever was done with regard to th* strengthening of the defences of those countries which did not believe in aggressive policies was of much interest to the American people. Questioned about the attitude of th« people of the United states to direct participation in the war, Mr. Waymack said there had been no miraculous change in their outlook. However, there had been a steady growth of feeling about the war and there was no doubt the American people knew whom they wanted to win.