AMERICAN OIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1941, Page 6

AMERICAN OIL

CONTINUED SALES TO JAPAN. Several American oil companies are known to have expressed fear lest their continued sales to Japan injure them in the United States market, writes, the Washington correspondent of the' v “Christian Science Monitor.” In the t light of this, it is interesting to learn that the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey recently informed a stockholder that “our Government has indicated its desire that we continue shipments to Japan.” What, then, are the reasons for the continued shipments? The first reason, as explained by an official in a position to speak authoritatively, is a very real fear that an embargo upon American oil shipmerits to Japan would cause the latter to attack the Netherlands East Indies in an attempt to secure permanently the rich oil reserves and resources there. There are at least three reasons, in turn, why the Government hopes to avoid such a development. In the first place, it does not wish to permit the United States Fleet to become involved in a Pacific war, when the time may come when all, or a very large part of it may be needed in the Atlantic. In the second, it does not wish to jeopardise its East Indian sources of tin and rubber. And in the third, it wishes to keep open the Pacific route between the United States and Singapore and the Red Sea, since it is becoming increasingly apparent that British forces in these areas must receive a large portion of their equipment from the United States.