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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Britain Debates Concessions to India As Pressure for Freedom Increases; New Jap Commander Heads Campaign Against MacArthur's Philippine Forces iTJoipd hv Western Newspaper Union.) 1 BURMA: ,4 fid India With the British moving slowly but surely backward on the Burma front, and with many believing that the fall of Java might be a signal for heavier pressure against India, the puzzle of how the people of India would react to the necessity of defense de-fense was worrying Britain. Many in England favored giving the Hindus dominion status, with Nehru as their head. Others thought TIRES: Real Shortage? A New York rubber dealer had sharply criticized those who were taking the rubber right out from under American automobile owners, at least in prospect, and had declared, de-clared, among other things, that there was a Connecticut manufacturer manufac-turer who, if given 2,000 tons of crude rubber, plus all the crepe rubber rub-ber soles of shoes, could retread 35,000,000 tires this year. He added that if this firm was not allowed to have the crude rubber he could do the same trick with reclaimed re-claimed rubber. He had challenged Leon Henderson's Hender-son's statement that the reclaiming rubber facilities of the nation could account only for 350,000 tons a year, and said: "He overlooks that these facilities could quickly be expanded to a million mil-lion tons or more by the simple re-fixing re-fixing of machinery and in secondhand second-hand machinery now available." This was hurling a bombshell into people's thinking, who had readily accepted Henderson's statement that the war would take a million cars off the roads by July, and that within a year some 12,000,000 autos might be demobilized. Henderson had said that the government gov-ernment might even be forced to take tires from the cars of some owners and give them to others whose uses for their cars was "more essential." The New Yorker, Elliott Simpson, went further. In his argument that all was not being done that should be in order to give the country a sufficient supply of rubber, he said there were "thousands of tons of wild rubber" in the upper Amazon country, and in parts of Central and South America. SIR ARCHIBALD WAVELL Needs full co-operation. the defense angle should be cleared before concessions were made. It had been conceded that General Wavell could hold India if he could get full co-operation. But reports from Burma had been disquieting. It seemed that largely the people were divided into two AS lO ruuuei Jjum guajuic laiua, which Henderson said there was "little chance" of realizing, Simpson x wis 'yl groups, those who were turning against the whites, and those who were going over to the Japs. Some light on this situation had been thrown by India's agent in Washington, Sir Girja Bajpai, who though he declined to comment on Nehru's demands, or on the recent irisit to Nehru and Gandhi by Chiang Kai-shek, he said this: "I am positive the Indian army is loyal to the Crown." How much this meant was open to much speculation. But British circles felt, apparently, that more than this would be necessary. MAC ARTHUR: Loyal Natives That there had been an extended period of quiet reported on Bataan did not mean that General MacArthur's MacAr-thur's men were unmindful that the fall of Java might well mean additional addi-tional troops for them to face, and additional air force for them to combat com-bat Meanwhile the war department announced an-nounced that the Japanese have assigned as-signed Lieut. Gen. Tomoyuke Yama-shita Yama-shita to oppose MacArthur. Yama-shita, Yama-shita, conqueror of Malaya and Singapore, Sing-apore, succeeds Lieut. Gen. Masa-haru Masa-haru Homma, who is thought to have committed hara-kiri because of his failure to wipe out MacArthur's men. Occasional dispatches had been filed quoting some members of the MacArthur forces as wanting to know "when the planes were coming" com-ing" but the general himself was too busy thinking up ways of combating com-bating the Japs and keeping them guessing to have himself quoted as demanding anything in the way of reinforcements. Yet he was constantly in touch, apparently, with what the enemy mora HninrT anH thiQ nrac talron in LEON HENDERSON His statement challenged. had declared that there were "million "mil-lion of acres" of guayule in Mexico which could either be harvested and sent to the United States, or that rubber sheet factories could be set up in Mexico. CONVOY: To Australia A story from a British correspondent correspond-ent had electrified Americans with the news that our troops actually were being put in Australian bases, thus confirming the general belief that the Allied offensive from that direction was no pipe dream, but the basic military plan of the na- were aoing, ana mis was laKen in military circles as a hopeful sign, showing that the natives were remaining re-maining loyal. One bit of information had come to Washington from Bataan that the Japs had. landed men and tanks on Mindoro island, and this was taken tak-en as a sure indication that serious I resistance to the invader had developed de-veloped there. As jungle fighters the Filipino was an excellent man, and his ability with the native knife, the nine-pound bolo, was such as to make him a terror to the Japs. MacArthur already al-ready had told Washington of the Japanese demand that the natives give up all such knives, further proof that even on occupied Luzon, the guerrillas were busy lopping down the numbers of the enemy. MacArthur's great stand on Ba-.taan Ba-.taan caused many American newspaper news-paper writers to demand that we drop the slogan "Remember Pearl Harbor" and change it to "Remember "Remem-ber MacArthur and Corregidor." CHURCHILL: Many American newspapers had been printing stories about the possibility possi-bility that Churchill's tenure of office of-fice was by a relatively slender thread, and some went so far as to give him three months more, and others to state that Sir Stafford Cripps would succeed him. To these stories London newspapers newspa-pers had been giving the raised eyebrow. eye-brow. One British writer said most : British circles had been surprised . to read of these reports, and that there was little or no truth in them. tion's war heads. The censorship bureau had ordered or-dered the press not to disclose the port of entry, the size of the convoys, con-voys, the number of troops, nor to identify the bases where they had been placed. There were many who had become somewhat jittery because of the wording of the British dispatch which was the people's first information infor-mation of what was transpiring. They had been thrilled to hear of the "hundreds of pilots," of the "brawny troops from the plains states," but they were fearful when the dispatch hinted that the Japanese Jap-anese navy was in contact with the convoys through "spearheads" and that naval battles "were in prospect." pros-pect." But the information later given tc the press by the censorship bureau had spoken as though the convoys already had arrived safely and that the troops were ashore, in their bases, and with that the public perforce per-force had to be content Secretary Knox of the navy was considerably upset by the "news leak" that brought America word of its fleet and troop movement prior to any release from the navy department, and said that he was "investigating it with a great deal of vigor." Oddly, the story had emanated from a British newspaper man who was riding with the convoy. Secretary Secre-tary Knox had been asked if he was taking up the matter with the British Brit-ish authorities. He replied: "We certainly are." |
