PACIFIC DEFENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23266, 8 February 1939, Page 14

PACIFIC DEFENCE

NATAL BASE SCHEME AMERICAN PROPOSAL ADMIRAL QUESTIONED NO THREAT TO JAPAN By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral W. D. Leahy, questioned by the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, said he did not know of any consultation with Britain about joint operations in the Pacific or the protection of Singapore. Replying to an observation that the United States was "inviting trouble" by the expenditure on the proposed Guam naval base, Admiral Leahy said he "still indulged in tho hopo that the seizure of American territory anywhere would not bo easy."

The improvement of Guam did not necessarily mean an act hostile to Japan, and he did not consider tho fortification of the Marshall Islands by Japan as an act hostile to the United States.

During a debate in Congress, in which it was proposed that President Roosevelt should be called upon to explain his foreign policy to Congress personally, Senator Reynolds declared that the United States had launched an undeclared war on Japan through her 25,000,000-dollar loan to China in December. This loan had been granted, he said, under an . Anglo-American agreement, arranged by the former British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden, who recently visited the United States. "The United States is pulling Britain's chestnuts out of the fire in the Far East," he added. Mr. Reynolds suggested that Britain and Franco should meet the United States' requirements for Atlantic naval bases by ceding their possessions in the West Indies as a settlement of their war debts.