ON CHINA'S SIDE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22943, 22 January 1938, Page 17

ON CHINA'S SIDE

BRITAIN AND AMERICA AUSTRALIAN PREPAREDNESS INTERNATIONAL COMPLICATIONS An Englishman and an Australian who arrived yesterday morning from San Francisco by the Monterey said in the course of separate interviews that for the time being Great Britain and the United States had sympathy for China far greater than their ability to intervene in the Sino-,Japanese war. An American stockbroker who was o through passenger to Australia was non-committal. His answer was; "Silence."

Mr. F. Allen, managing director of Lewis Berger and Sons, Limited, London, said that the people of England vicre greatly exercised upon the subject of the wholesale slaughter of Chinese and the ruthless methods of the

.Japanese military and air forces. Jn both England and America there was a strong feeling that the two countries should co-operate in an effort to quench this activity.

Feeling in United States Mr. G. F. Davis, a controller of the Cockatoo Dockyard, Sydney, who with Mrs. Davis, had spent about a year in travelling through the Continent, England and the United States, ( said that the feeling of Americans against the Japanese and their campaign in China was even stronger than that of the average Englishman. Had Britain not honoured the disarmament treaty, she would have been better able to stand firmly between Japan and China.

There was no doubt that, the sympathy of Britain was with China, Mr. Davis said, hut in t lie com plica tod condition of international relationships in the Mediterranean, Britain was not vet ready to join forces with America to stop much of the turmoil in Hhe world. This programme of self-determina-tion had been the aim of the Japanese since the beginning of this century, lie said, and the invasion of China was an integral part of the programme. The domination of China and mastery of the Pacific seemed to bo part of it also. It had been said that the Japanese would he content if their objective in this programme were realised by the end of the twentieth century. Oil For Defence Needs Because of this the Imperial defence plan was taking various shapes in Australia, Mr. Davis continued. One of the most important was the development of crude-oil supplies for the mechanised units of the army, the navy and other branches of defence, and a company with which he was connected had been granted concessions at Newnes, in the Blue Mountains, for the production of at least 10,000,000 gallons of crude oil every year. It had been realised that a defence scheme could not be successful unless there wero adequate supplies of fuel for engines.

Mr. Elwood P. McEnany, a prominent New York stockbroker who has been ninny times round the world, said the best answer to the question was the word "silence."