MR HUGHES' VIEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1919, Page 2

MR HUGHES' VIEWS.

(United Service Telegrams.) , PARIS, Jan. 21. Mr'. Murdoch states:—ln an interview given by Mr. Hughes to American journalists, lie indicated that it is his inteiiton strenuously to oppose the Japanese annexation of the Marshall and Caroline Islands. , President TVilson desires that the Pacific Islands should be internationalised, under the League of Nations with the administrative control.

Britain and Japan wish the line of Equator t.o divide the spheres of influence; Australia and New Zealand annexing the islands southward, and Japan those northward of the Equator. Britain claims that Mr. Andrew Fisher’s Government in 1915, accepted this solution.

It appears that Mr. Hughes does not agree with this plan. An urgent question is as to whether Australasia would prefer America as the mandatory power for all the German possessions in the Pacific, or Britain, or the solution hv accepting the Equator as the marking terminus of the southward descent of tin' Japanese. Perhaps it will be possible to secure a mandatory control over the Marshals and Carolines for Britain, provided, of course, that Japan receives territorial compensation elsewhere.