PACIFIC PROBLEMS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 19, 24 January 1919, Page 5

PACIFIC PROBLEMS

CONFLICTING VIEWS. {Australian and N.Z- Cable Arisociatijn) PARIS, Jan. 21. Air Murdoch states that in the interviews given by Mr Hughes to an American journalist ho indicates his intention strenuously to oppose Japanese annexation of the Marshall and Caroline Islands. _ President Wilson desires that the Pacific Islands sliou-'.ld be internationalised under the League of Nations, with Britain as the mandatory Power charged by the League with their administration and! control. Britain and Japan wish a line from the Equator to divide the sphere® of influence, Australia and New Zealand annexing the islands southward and Japan those northward of the Equator. Britain claims that Mr Fisher’s Government in 1916 accepted this solution. It appears that Mr Hughes does not agree with this plan, , An urgent question is whether Australasia would prefer America as mandatory Power for all‘the German possess ons in the Pacific, or Britain, or a solution by accepting the Equator as marking the terminus of the southward descent of the Japanese, Perhaps it would still be possible to secure mandatory control over the Marshall and Caroline Islaiids for > Britain provided Japan received - territorial compensation elsewhere.