THE ALTAR OF MARS.

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 220, 2 October 1940, Page 4

THE ALTAR OF MARS.

AS a skirmish precludes the battle proper, so the juggling amongst the nations seems to bespeak the intensity of the coming conflict which in all truth appears to be about to embroil the entire world. Last week with the same emazing rapidity of the march of events which has characterised the present struggle, the Orient flung out the first bond which has tied the yellow-skinned race to junkers of Europe. Japan has re-established her membership in the Axis of aggression and though declaring in the same breath that she has no intention of entering the war "at present" holds a formidable naval threat against the possible interference of .-the United States in Asiatic affairs. There can be no doubt but that when and where the right opportunity offers the Japanese' militarists will seize it for themselves, lest the restless Empire of the Rising Sun be excluded from the scramble for territory which the Dictatorships fondly imagine will take place: after the present struggle. Again in the offing the Axis nations speak glibly of Spain as a fourth partner. Not without some authority from the Franco Government would, such an assertion be risked and there can be nothing more certain than that Spain will be employed, actively or subversively in the effort to break the British supremacy in the Mediterranean. " The key lies in that stratagic fortress, Gibralter, which cannot be taken unless by concerted and uninterrupted operations from sea and land. Behind all this reshuffling appears the gigantic preparations for the approaching conflict of a world in arms, which unless a miracle occurs, must and will take, place within a comparatively short time. Slowly but surely the great American democracy is drawn step, by step into the vortex of European affairs. The sudden jolt of the Japanese link-up has served to make her people realise the immediate danger of an Asiatic seaboard dominated by a land-hungary, militaristic power. U.S.A. in spite of electioneering catch-cries of "non-interference'' is worried and every sane citizen in the federated states recognises the folly of remaining inpassiye when the threat to themselves becomes so evident.. Germany dominating practically twothirds of the European mainland, yet having failed dismally in her boasted conquest of Britain, Italy striving desperately to carry out her projected invasion of Egypt but harrassed by the thunder of English guns off the coastal route which her armies must travel; Japan with her millions of fighting men seeking without loss of "face" to honourably close the China incident; and finally revolution torn Spain, scarce from her wounds of civil war; these four constitute the belligerent forces in the w T orld today. What can mean this reshuffling of >the cards since the invasion of Britain has been discarded by the leading villains of the piece? - The next few weeks will tell.