Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1944 THE PRESIDENT IN THE PACIFIC

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 16 August 1944, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1944 THE PRESIDENT IN THE PACIFIC

WHEN he goes travelling President Roosevelt does not leave his keen sense of perception behind. For our part of the world his Pacine tour speech Is one of the most Important he has ever made. Its wide sweep, embracing the great Pacific Basin, its strategic insight and the penetrating diagnosis of needs for future security through International collaboration combine to make a remarkable survey. There is nothing like going to see for oneself. On his ocean voyage the President obeyed the injunction of Dr. Samuel Johnson to

t,et observation with extensive view Survey mankind from China to Peru: Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, And watch the busy scenes of crowded life. His vision ranged even wider than that—north,west and south from the vantage point of Hawaii. Stern reality has shifted the emphasis on those islands from a pleasure resort and commercial centre to a military bastion. From that base some of the forces of reconquest have radiated to Guadalcanar, New Guinea, the Marshalls and Marianas. From there he is confident they will radiate to the Philippines and the China Coaßt and subsequently to Tokio itself. Way uja north he visited the bleak Aleutians for the first time to visualise them as a bridge between the North American continent and China and Siberia when this zone, like all others, shall have been rendered secure against the possible recrudescence of “sneak attacks.” Alaska, still virtually an undiscovered country, he hopes to make a fresh field of achievement for American pioneers. But changed circumstances and chastening experience demand that America shall push her island frontiers forward from Hawaii into other Pacific zones, not for aggression or aggrandisement, but for world security. The President wants to see

new HaWaiis arise In the islandstudded South-West and South Pacific. Those military zones, once so indefinable and lacking significance in the lay mind, have apparently come to stay. On the one hand tho islands referred to—colonies of Britain and France—lead to the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Australia and New Zealand. Oh the other they bear the same positional relationship to South America as Hawaii does to North America besides standing athwart the ocean sea-lanes which converge on the focal point of the Panama Canal. It is in making these zohes sale for all people that the United States intends to take a share. No longer, either in the Pacific or Atlantic, do the Americans stand in stubborn isolation on their mainland eaß.st.llneH.

“The destinies of the peoples of the whole Pacific will, for many years, be entwined With our destiny,” suys the American President. In carrying out his purpose he seeks fair and friendly collaboration from these Countries concerned, who, ho adds, will gain both economically and in national security. Sensing a stirring among the millions of the Pacific for the chance to work out • their oWn destinies, America aims to help them, for she discerns among them no desire to overrun the earth—with one exception. Japan is the culprit. Japan is to be beaten down and put on rigid and perhaps prolonged probation before she can ever hope to enter the comity of nations. President Roosevelt is deeply conscious of his Country’s responsibility for guarding future peace by the exercise of America’s influence in lands thousands of miles from home. The world should be safer in ’years to come for thin offer of big-- 1 mother protection, an offer not made from motives of self-interest, but of common interest.