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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Roger Shaw ! Japan, Italy and Germany Sign Pact Establishing 'A New Order' for World; ' U. S. Places an Embargo on Scrap Iron; j Senate Ratifies Pan-American Treaty i . . (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Rt. I... by Western Newspaper Union. SOLID? Maybe The United States senate did a sensible thing. It finally proceeded to ratify the recent agreement made at Havana de Cuba, whereby America Amer-ica and the other 20 American republics re-publics made an out-and-out agreement agree-ment on diplomatic fundamentals. It is pretty hard to get the 21 to agree about anything, but this time they did, the Argentine (as usual) dragging along a bit behind. Secretary Secre-tary Hull is not liked in the Argentine. Argen-tine. The agreement that our senators ratified specified this: That no non-American non-American country can transfer territory ter-ritory in this hemisphere to any other oth-er non-American country. Hence, and thereby, the Germans cannot get ahold of the Dutch or French West Indian colonies. That bit of news seemed to cheer everyone of the 21, including even the Mexicans, Argentines, and other Latins who do not cherish their kindly old Uncle Sam as perhaps they should. THE WAR: Axis Pact I Germany, Italy and Japan agreed ' to a pact. It amounted to this: If Russia or the United States interfered inter-fered in the Anglo-German war, or 1 the Chino-Japanese war, by force of j arms, all three of the axis partners ' would go to work as one. The Kremlin Krem-lin at Moscow did not like the pact. Neither did the state department at Washington. One school of thought in America said they had known it was coming for a long time, and had been prepared pre-pared for it. Another school of thought said: No. This school said that our meddling in European and East Asiatic affairs at the same time had forced Germany and Japan into one another's arms. These two schools of U. S. thought did not exactly ex-actly like each other and Secretary Hull came in for some pretty severe criticism. Divided? The basic military principle, at all times, in all places, is this: Don't divide your forces, and don't fight on two fronts. The Germans lost the last war because of this basic principle, and in this war they have been careful to respect its potentialities. po-tentialities. We do not yet have a two-ocean navy, and won't have for several years. What would become CAMPAIGN: Tidbits There was a good deal of comment com-ment around New York, coming from (perhaps) catty Republican circles. It amounted to this. It hinted that the state denartmpnt's LONDON: England London, it was noted, is the veritable veri-table nerve-center of England. This is not true of Washington or Berlin or Moscow or Rome. It's true, however, how-ever, that Paris is the nerve-center fussing with Japan was intended to panic the American voters around election time. These same Republicans, Repub-licans, and others, had been predicting pre-dicting an international crisis (of some sort or other) before the election, elec-tion, just in time to tilt the balance. They had said as much, months back. They reminded the American Ameri-can public that both the British and the Nazis had experienced such artful art-ful dodges, in the celebrated cases of the forged Zinoviev Letter (British) (Brit-ish) and the fake Reichstag fire (German). Democrats did not seem particularly particu-larly worried about this type of of France. London City contains nearly 25 per cent of the total population of Great Britain. It contains more than 20 per cent of the British industrial workers. It contains about a quarter quar-ter of all British industry, as well as the British financial, banking, and commercial structure. London also contains most of the big British oil storage tanks. It contains the Wellington and Spitfire airplane factories, the houses of parliament, par-liament, and Buckingham palace, as well as the bank of England. It contains a third of the British dockage, dock-age, and about a third of all British political bickering. Candidate Roosevelt's Roose-velt's campaign moved along according ac-cording to schedule, still out in front. Willkie Some of the Republican campaigners campaign-ers and party men were very outspoken out-spoken along these lines. But Will-kie's Will-kie's attack on Roosevelt, as a variety vari-ety of Munich appeaser, seemed to go too far for many of the critics to stomach. That particular attack seemed to do Willkie more harm than good, and Wendell had to be soft-peddled by his own following. The British empire (aside from Ireland Ire-land and India) were cheering for Roosevelt to a man. Reports from London showed F. D. R. to be better liked than the king, the queen, or Mr. Winston Churchill. Woodrow imports come in through London. In the east end of London, among the squalid slums, is a vast alien population. These people are Italian, Ital-ian, Jewish, Lascar, Malay, Indian, shanty Irish, and none too patriotic. They are no fifth column they are plentifully anti-Nazi. But they are not desirable people to have around in a time of siege. They are much more nervous than the real English, and much less stolid. In Berlin Berlin, too, has a vast foreign population. But it is less volatile than that of London. Most of Berlin's Ber-lin's aliens are Slavic, and phlegmatic. phleg-matic. The real British are calmer than the real Germans, and steadier, stead-ier, but the Berlin aliens can "take AMBASSADOR SAIWRO KURUSU, Japan's envoyAo Germany, who signed the tripartite consultative pact, linking link-ing Germany, Italy and Japan for his government. of England, if we were off chasing Japan? Some of the military critics said there had been rather inept diplomacy. There was great talk of wooing .Russia. Wooing Russia was poison to the conservative ruling class in Latin America . and to some ele- menis in me u. B. And yet, it seemed necessary to woo Russia, as the English had thought for a long time. Meanwhile, the French had beaten the British navy in an action off Dakar, in West Africa. It raised a storm in England, and did not add to Churchill's prestige. There was talk of another British government purge, and the French Vichy regime re-gime gained prestige. Swarms of French aviators peppered British Gibraltar from the air, and the Japs moved increasingly into French Indo-China. Hull wisely embargoed scrapiron destined for Japan, and the general muddle grew apace. SCRAPIRON: Great Stuff (!) What you can do with a ton of scrapiron, fresh from your favorite automobile graveyard, is truly astonishing. as-tonishing. The Japanese knew that, and had a word for it. They will sadly miss their American scrap-iron scrap-iron whiVh tho TT C V. $ t if j it better than the east-end London aliens, according to war correspondents, correspond-ents, neurologists, and social-minded critics. It has been proven, by this time, that the British are not the world's best under aerial bombardment, though they are very good at it The Spanish, Chinese, and Russians all exceed the Cockneys in fatalism and adaptability. MEXICO CITY: No Mean Town Mexico City, which is located in g federal district like Washington, D C, is a wonderful place, with a wonderful won-derful climate. It is high up in altitude, and you need blankets at night, and many of us wish we were there. The population of Mexico City has sprouted like wildfire. Just an-nounced-ifs now up to 1,750 000 plus. That's a lot of people for a nation of only about 15,000,000 Rio de Janeiro; the capital of vast Bra- 711 (hidffor u .. . bargoed. Some critics said this measure should have been taken back in the redhot summer of 1937 when the Japanese attacked North China and began the endless Chino-Japanese Chino-Japanese war. U. S. ordnance officers declared you could make the following with an average ton of scrapiron: One "75" field gun of the standard French or American type. One carriage of a "75" gun. No less than 12 death-squirting machine guns. Nine 500-pound "demolition" bombs, a la London. One 2.000 pound, 16-inch, battleship-piercing shell. In short what a devilish trade, as the missionaries could have told us over three years ago! -- .-.oo. ul(; umtea states) is just a wee bit behind Mexico City. Buenos Aires, capital of the white man's Argentine republic totals to-tals the whopping brand-new figure of 2,300,000 souls. This means something. It means that Buenos Aires is now the biggest Latin city in the whole world I means that Mexico City is second Pari, th I"6' " third- and that Pans-that so-gay Paree-is way down in fourth place. After Paris tag a ong Italy's Milan and Rome Spam s Madrid and Barcelona and Canada's Montreal The three big German towns are Berlin Vienna and Hamburg. The three big Anglo-Saxon towns are New York. London, and Sytaey far Australia, plus Chicago. Gla" gow and Philadelphia. Japanese Tokyoisnow the world's third city Lieut. Col. Leivis B. Hershey (above) has had powers of the director of selective se-lective service conferred upon him by an executive order of President Roosevelt. Roose-velt. His appointment is effective immediately im-mediately and will continue pending the appointment of a regular director 47 years old. Colonel Hershey is a veteran oj the last war and has been preparing and studying conscription plans as his assignment in the regular army for the past several years. Wilson, it will be remembered, had some such brief experience of international inter-national popularity back around 1918 when British, French and Italian crowds loved and halo-ed him as a St. George who had slain the Teuton-dragon. Teuton-dragon. Historical minded people remembered that it didn't last, once the 1919 peace conference had actually gotten to work. WAT? XTFTY . What Price Glory? One of the British Spitfire fighter planes had a defective motor, so it lagged behind its little mates in the fighting around the pestered London district This is what the "lame-duck" "lame-duck" Spitfire was able to do: 1. It shot down a big German bomber over London. 2. It set on fire another big German Ger-man bomber. 3. It injured a small German fighter, fight-er, and probably put it "out" 4. It made a safe landin? |