VITAL TO AMERICA

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24178, 21 January 1942, Page 8

VITAL TO AMERICA

PACIFIC iWAE ZONE SENATE LEADER'S VIEW OTHER OPINIONS DIFFER WASHINGTON, Jan 20 Senator Tom Connally, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the United States could not afford to neglect the Pacific for any other war theatre. "We cannot," he said, "go off alone, and leave the Pacific theatre alone. If we did the* Japanese would be in Australia soon. "If we neglected the Pacific the Japanese would solidify their points of conquest, from which it would take a long and dreary war to dislodge them." Leading newspapers in California take the view that the Allies will have to remain on the defensive in the Pacific until they are in a position to strike at Hitler, who is regarded as Enemy No. 1. An American commentator who made this statement said this view conformed with public opinion. He ,added that at a public meeting-he addressed recently he took a vote on this same question. Seventy-five per cent of the voters declared that Hitler was Enemy No. 1 and Japan Enemy No. 2. ' Japanese Problem * The commentator said the Japanese problem in the United States and Canada was causing concern. Ninety per cent of the Japanese in the United States were on the Pacific coast near some of the nation's greatest industrial plants and bases. In British Columbia the Japanese fishing fleet, consisting of 135 boats, had been seized, but the. fishermen, all of whom had a very detailed knowledge of the coastline, Were still at large. The Canadian Government, he added, was considering rounding up all Japanese and sending them to the interior. Two of three commentators who took part in a discussion broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation suggested that it was more vital for the Allies to hold Suez than Singapore. One of them said that last year Allied gains in Libya were sacrificed for Greece and Crete, and suggested that the gains in the present campaign should not be sacrificed for Singapore. Dutch Leader's Appeal The sending of air, sea and land forces to the Netherlands East Indies immediately was urged by the Lieutenant Governor-General of the Netherlands East Indies, Dr. van Mook, in a broadcast from New York. Dr. van Mook said the Netherlands East Indies formed a wall between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and if they were lost the best base for a counterattack against the enemy would be gone and Australia would be isolated A commentator, Mr. Robert Fraser. said: "We know that the Allied Fleet is not dispersed throughout the Pacific as the Japanese hoped it would be."