PACIFIC PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 April 1940, Page 5

PACIFIC PROBLEMS

UNITED STATES NAVAL INQUIRY SUSPICIONS OF JAPAN. SUGGESTED ARRANGEMENT WITH AUSTRALIA. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 9.35 a.m.) WASHINGTON, April 22. Rear-Admiral Taussig, ex-Assist-ant Chief of Naval Operations, testifying before the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, expressed the opinion that Japan would attempt to take the Philippines, French Indo-China and the Netherlands Indies. He said: "I cannot see how wc can ultimately prevent being drawn into the war, on account of the Far Eastern situation.” He urged the building of an invincible navy, fortification of the Philippines and Guam and co-opera-tion with Britain and France in the East. Major George Fielding Eliot, a military writer, expressed the opinion that a British-American-Netherlands Pacific alliance would be ineffective, because Britain and Holland at present had no freedom of action. He advocated instead an agreement with Australia and added that, if the United States had the support of Australian bases and loaned money to improve them, it might be in a better position in the Pacific.