ATTITUDE OF AMERICA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19980, 4 July 1939, Page 5

ATTITUDE OF AMERICA

VITAL TO A SOLUTION BRITISH FIRMNESS URGED LONDON, June 23. British and French newspapers are emphasising that America’s- attitude Is the key to the situation in the Far East. Unless America officially joins Britain and France, Japan .is not likely to retreat from her demand that the Tientsin dispute be settled on the army’s terms.

Japan fears American intervention because of her belief that British economic reprisals would not be effective unless America acted in concert with her.

Writing in the Daily Express, Lord Beaverbrook says: "I have always taken the view that Americans are

not deeply concerned in the European situation, and that it would not be easy to bring them over the Atlantic for the defence of liberty. “But I am also convinced, as a native of that American continent, and for long a resident of the American boundary, that if war breaks out, Japan will have to face Immediately the American naval forces, -and all the. strength and resources of the United States. The reason ds not,far to seek. Americans will hot permit that menace to become a terror.”

The Daily Mail calls-for-firm action by the Cabinet. “The Tientsin deadlock has been on the way since Japan asked for help tin building a battle fleet—and built it with the assistance of Queen Victoria’s Admiralty,” the paper says.

"It has been due ever since Japan decided that a little group of islands with a growing population should not confine its energies when there was an overseas empire ready ito be conquered. “The Tientsin crisis did not start at the end of last week. It started at the end of last century. The Cabinet is not thinking as one man on the latest crisis. Such a challenge does not invite compromise. It must be met with the firmest and clearest answer.”