Henderson daily dispatch. (Henderson, N.C.) 1914-1995, 1940-04-16


France equally Cor even more sol
are violently pro-Chiang and against
the JapS' puppet.
lis easily eXplainable. Nobody
doubts that the Japanese plan is to
crowd the Occidental countries in
fluence out of Asia. Britain and
France have even better reasons
than Uncle Sam for opposing the
Japanese program, because they
have territorial possessions in the
Occldent, and they fOresee that the
Japanese presently will be threaten
ing them.
Our interests are commercial only.
OF course, we don't want our COM
mercial interests interfered with,
either. Still, that wouldn't be as
bad us having actual colonies taken
away from us, which is what Japan
evidently contemplateS in Britain's
and Frances cases.
Japan Versus Russia
All the same. the western powers
are under a certain sort of obligation
to the Japanese for diverting Rus
STA from participation in the strife
on their own side Of the war front.
Russia would be big bother to
the Allies if it went Wholc-hearted-
ly into the Germans fight against
the Allies. 1t might ultimately be-
come danger to Uncle Samuel. Its
program manifestly is to get, if it
can, control Of the whole Scandina-
Wan northern peninsula, making the
Soviets formidable in the Atlantic
That would hit in our direction. 1t
wouldn't be immediate, but Strate-
giStS see on into the future.
We're an Atlantic-Pacific country.
It's nuisance to have both coasts
to consider.
German possibilities fret us to the
eastward, japanese possibilities to-
ward the west. To have another
country annoying us from both
points of the compass would be dis
tinct pest.
No, we're not worried about Rus
STA at present-.bqt subsequently?
A Buffer Country
What we need is what diplomats
call a buffer country"
The Japanese may be totalitarian,
but their government isn't COmmun-
iStic-Which it doesn't want it to be,
but Russia is.
Now, l don't know that Chang
Kai-Shel: is Communist. But
Comrade Stain thinks he is.
Therefore, Moscow inclines some
what toward Chang and has been
onlpipcr him mona ~, loco with c,,oL,
supplies as it can get to him very
inconveniently, due TO primitive
transportation facilities. BY the
same token, the Sovets are vigor-
Ously opposed to Wang, who, at
TokyO's suggestion, has noisily pro-
claimed his hostility to the Com
munistic campaign he asserts that
Chang is Waging.
The Russians are extremely sus-
picious of the japanese, also. They're
additionally unfriendly to the lat
ter, and just now their belief is that
the Japanese aim at gobbling at least
a sizable part of Siberia. Indeed,
there was .Russo-Japanese fighting
along their border only lately.
Weak Truce
Not long ago 4 sort of an apology
for a truce was patched up between
Russia and Japan, but it, notorious
ly, is extremely Indispensable
In short, the situation to RuSsia's
eastward and to the south of Siberia
is so precariouS that it is easy to see
why Comrade Stain doesn't care to
become too deeply involved in west
ern Europe.
Stain probably is quite right in
his belief that Japan would attack
him at the first good opportunity.
Such opportunity would present
itself if he were preoccupied against
the European Allies in northern
Sweden and Norway and, perhaps,
was being harassed likewise by
Britains naval forces along his own
Arctic coast.
To sum up, from the standpoint of
the United States, Britain, France
and other countries which have large
stakes in the Orient and which do
not want Russia pushing any furth-
er to the westward, Japan and Wang,
on the one hand, and Russia on the
opposite hand, offset one another
very handily.