JAPANESE MOVES IN TIMOR

Southland Times, Issue 24623, 20 December 1941, Page 7

JAPANESE MOVES IN TIMOR

ALLIES ACT FIRST (8.0.W.) RUGBY, December 18. Regarding the announcement that a force of Allied troops had been landed | in Portuguese Timor, some 500 miles ' north-west of Darwin, and comprising the eastern half of the island, the western half of which is under Dutch control, a Foreign Office commentator said that even before the outbreak of the European war Japan showed an increasing interest in gaining a foothold in Portuguese Timor. To this end the Japanese Government did what it could to persuade the Portuguese Government to transfer to it oil concessions' previously granted to an Australian firm. The Portuguese stood legally by their engagement, however, and eventually a concession to prospect for oil in the eastern half of the island was taken over by a combine of the major oil companies, including Shell, Standard, Vacuum and Anglo-Iranian. At the end of 1940 the Portuguese Government granted facilities to Qantas Airways (Australia) to call at the capital, Dilli, and from the beginning of this year an Australian flying-boat had called once a fortnight in both directions on the way between Darwin and Singapore. During the same period the Portuguese Government agreed to a series of trial flights by a Japanese air service from Japan to Portuguese Timor via Palao, in the Japanese mandated islands. Meanwhile, evidence continued to accumulate of Japanese attempts to establish themselves in Timor by quasi-com-mercial means. In October 1941; the Portuguese Government signed an air agreement with the Japanese Government granting facilities for a Japanese air line at Dilli. The Japanese used this occasion io send a delegation of officials to Dilli and obtained from the Portuguese recognition of the establishment of a Japanese Consulate there it will be recalled that delegations were sent by the Japanese with no doubt similar aims in the past to Batavia and Indo-China. The Portuguese Government has rightly pointed out that the facilities which it granted to the Japanese air line are analogous to those granted to Qantas Airways, but this is by no means reassuring to the neighbouring territories—Australia and the Dutch East Indies. Since the outbreak of war with Japan it is obvious that Portuguese Timor has come into the danger zone and in view of the Japanese activities the danger is very real. Japan has acted swiftly on a number of points. In the opening phases of this new war she has shown a complete disregard of the neutrality of any country whom she felt strong enough to coerce and nothing would be more likely than that she would attack Portuguese Timor with the object of establishing a base from which to reach Australia and neighbouring Dutch territories.