VICHY TREACHERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 March 1942, Page 4

VICHY TREACHERY

v PLANS IN MADAGASCAR NEED OF ALLIED ACTION. STRESSED IN BRITAIN & SOUTH AFRICA. LONDON, March 8. The “Arrival of a Japanese mission in Madagascar has swiftly followed on a visit by Admiral Platon, the Vichyite Minister of the Colonies,” says the “Daily Mail.” “Admiral Platon’s visits to French possessions—for example, Dakar—have so far meant a stiffening in the defences to the detriment of the Allies. “Four - hundred French ships in the past year’ have sailed fox’ Madagascarfrom the Mediterranean, and many, it is believed, carried material fox’ refortifying the landing-places and for establishing airfields. “Diego-Suarez is one of the finest natural harbours in the world, and its air defences and naval installations have been considerably improved in, the past year. Admiral Darlan has probably sent a hand-picked Fascist garrison to Madagascar, as he did at Dakar. “Once the Japanese appear off Madagascar, the newspaper continues, there will be a repetition of the Vichy treachery in French Indo-China, where bases were accorded to the Japanese. The Japanese would' find the population a favouring factor, because the 3,500,000 Madagascans are of Malayan, Melanesian and Polynesian stock, which is not particularly hostile to the Japanese over-running the west Pacific. The Madagascans have not taken kindly to Western influence. The Durban correspondent of the “Daily Mail” says there is little chance of the Japanese being allowed to occupy Madagascar. South Africa, in collaboration with Britain and America, has laid plans to forestall any such move. “The greatest danger,” says the correspondent, “rests not so much in a Japanese invasion of Madagascar as in their using the island secretly for aii’ operations against the British lifeline to the Middle East. “There is a widespread opinion that the Allies should take over Madagascar as a precaution. The Allies would commit military suicide if they allowed the Japanese to gain a foothold there.”