SERIOUS OUTLOOK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 October 1941, Page 5

SERIOUS OUTLOOK

ARMY & NAVY TAKING CHARGE OPINION IN WASHINGTON. DISCUSSIONS IN AMERICA. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, October 16. President Roosevelt conferred with the Secretary of State, Mr Cordell Hull, the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Marshall, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Stark. and the Lend-Lease programme administrator. Mr Hopkins. Strict secrecy was maintained. Mr Hull told reporters afterward that he was expressly prohibited from saying anything. The State Department and the Japanese Embassy said their advices did not yet reveal the true situation in Japan. Two possibilities • are foreseen . in Washington. One was that Prince Konoye resigned in order to bring Imperial support behind his policies. If that were the case and he were successful it would be greeted with relief. The other view is that he has failed in his programme, that negotiations with the United States will now be terminated and that ultra-nationalists will control the Government. It is believed the latter would mean that Japan is bent on military and perhaps naval expansion and on a move north into Siberia or South Indo-China, or in both directions simultaneously. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Rayburn, said: “I am afraid the situation is very serious. It appears that the Japanese army and navy will now have considerably more to do with the new Tokio Government.”