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Show WEEKLY MEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Britain Debates Concessions to India As Pressure for Freedom Increases; New Jap Commander Heads Campaign Against Mac Arthur's Philippine Forces (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) I (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) 1 BURMA: And 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 bein 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. As to rubber from guayule plants, which Henderson said there was "little chance" of realizing, Simpson I ' " 'i - 1 -Is I it s ' T" JAVA: Finis The breakthrough of Japanese troops through the Bandoeng defense de-fense lines, and the coincident closing clos-ing down of the radio station with a dramatic "Farewell until better times," the defense of Java had reached its apparent finish. The review of the campaign showed "greatly superior" forces of Japanese, both from a naval and military standpoint, had crashed ashore on the east, the west and the north central portions of the island, and within 10 days had practically cut Java in two. Early in the campaign the Dutch commanders had complained that there had not been enough naval, air or land support for their defense, de-fense, and as the Japs swept Inland there apparently had been a pretty hot scramble for the non-combatants to get away to Australia, and the Allies Al-lies hoped that some of the United Nations' defending troops would have been able to make a getaway, also. Hardly any observer had believed that Java could hold out long, but few had been prepared for the suddenness sud-denness with which the defense had collapsed. First intimation of the end was that the United Nations fleet had been forced to admit Japanese supremacy su-premacy on the waters surrounding the islands; then it was conceded that the air forces of the island had been snowed under. With land and sea and air defenses de-fenses shattered, the end could not be long, it was then realized, and the Japs poured men into the island is-land in sufficient numbers to drive all before them. FARMERS: And Income Tax Many thousands of American farmers who had never seen an income in-come tax blank had stepped into Uncle Sam's offices this year and filled out their forms. City folks, looking over Form 1040-F had read this note: "The value of farm produce which is consumed by the farmer and his family need not be reported as income, in-come, but expenses incurred in raising rais-ing this produce must not be claimed as deductions." To city dwellers this seemed, perhaps, per-haps, like "small potatoes" but in the aggregate jt amounted to a "pretty penny" for the department of agriculture showed that farmers' families consumed in 1940 food worth $1,288,819,000. Thus the average farm family is figured to eat $202 worth of food each year, and two-thirds of this they produce pro-duce themselves. The city dweller, however, eats an average of $314 in food each year, and has to buy it all out of income. NELSON: And Ships Swiftly following up Uie "blue" report re-port of William Harrison, his production pro-duction division head, who had said there had been disappointments in the ship production rate so far in 1942, ' Donald M. Nelson, WPB head, had told newsmen that the goal of 8,000,000 tons for this year will be met. "In fact," he said, "we are try. ing to figure now how to beat that total. to-tal. The whole nation is at stake. The ship program must not fall down. And it won't." He had recently conferred with labor la-bor leaders about his demand that the ship industry increase its output 25 per cent by going entirely into 168-hour full weekly schedules. Mr. Nelson said he had not recognized recog-nized any lack of materials for ship, building industries. 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 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 visit 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 MacAr-thur'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 were doing, and this was taken 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 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 Bataan 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." 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 nation's na-tion's war heads.1 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 to 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 Brit-'ish Brit-'ish authorities. He replied: "We certainly are." He said that the British writer was "enjoying the courtesy of an American Amer-ican ship with the understanding that anything he wrote would get official scrutiny." The first intimation that American troops actually were in Australia came from Yates McDaniel, AP correspondent, cor-respondent, and he "buried" the information in-formation at the end of a long "color" "col-or" story about his trip from Bata-via. Bata-via. There had been little information in this dispatch save that "Perth was filled with American forces." 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 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. Another admitted that Churchill was standing "on an inclined plane," but that the addition of Cripps to his cabinet had strengthened his toehold toe-hold rather than loosening it, and that any victory anywhere would put him "in more solid" than ever before. be-fore. One writer declared "we don't claim we have a perfect government, but we are trying to improve ours do the Americans think theirs is perfect?" per-fect?" John G. Winant, U. S. ambassador to Britain, stated that the recent changes will strengthen the cabinet. MISCELLANY: Rio de Janeiro: Brazil had placed Japanese diplomats under guard fol-lowing fol-lowing reports from Tokyo that Brazil's Bra-zil's envoys had been held incommunicado, incom-municado, and that the embassy had been occupied by the military. Burma: American-made tanks were said to have arrived on the British fighting front near Rangoon. A second squadron of American vol unteer fliers also had arrived. Austin, Texas: Texas oil wells were told to shut down 13 days this month. Reason, lack of transportation transporta-tion facilities. Ankara: Soviet-Turkish relations were reported acute following attempt at-tempt on Von Papen's life. Three Russians were said to have been seized. Smithfield, N. C: Four dead, more than 100 injured had been the toll when an ammunition-laden motor truck collided with an auto, the truck catching fire. Two hours later it blew up and wrecked the country |
