Show WEEKLY MEWS ANALYSIS By Edward C. Wayne Jap Invasion Bases in New Guinea Strengthen Drive Against Promised Dominion Status for India Fails to Result in Expected Harmony NOTE When opinions are expressed In these they are those of the news not necessarily of this by Western Newspaper I j u ke V v vessel i. JAPANESE Reports from Australia emphasize the importance of Allied attacks on the Japanese invasion bases of and Lae in northeast New From to Thursday oft the northern tip of the distance is From Port the nearest major harbor to the to Cape on the northern Australian the distance is little more than Oi the Spot Hardly had the battle of Java reached the mopping up stages than the battle for the approaches of Australia had started with rumblings from within the continent that the were far from pleased with j the amount of preparedness they j The signal for the beginning of the for the attempted I invasion of Australia had closely followed the shut-down of 1 with and came at the same time news was received that some Australian badly needed at were still fighting I a hopeless fight on the island of The spearhead of the projected invasion was apparently to be based on the island of New to the north of the continent and immediately threatening it as the shortest airline flight from the East The Japs had landed large forces at Lae and at and had been busily engaged in consolidating these positions as bases of This was enough to set at rest any doubts Australians might have had that India and not they were going to be next on the Jap time I Not only but the with brutal had broadcast that Australia was going to suffer the same fate as had the Dutch East How much American aid and reinforcement already was in Australia was and a closely guarded military If we were weak the military leaders naturally didn't want the Japs to know how and if we were strong enough to defeat when and if they should these same leaders didn't want to warn them i The only stories concerning the amount of aid had come from who had written that the j town of Perth was so full of American troops that it looked like an American and from British Correspondent whose dispatch had caused an immediate tempest which hadn't gone anywhere at Harr it was apparently writing from the midst of an American convoy bound to Australia had said that the was covered with and that of America's best fighting were America also was sending men the plains he but gave no hint of their whether infantry or air force or It was from Australian leaders themselves that the hint came that the continent was One is the plan of the Japanese to attack us before we can get and before we can receive Secrecy had muddled the picture for but certain it was that in going after Australia the Japs were really biting oft a chunk which would take a bit of for they'd find no fifth-column there waiting to be taken Britain's Problem Churchill had informed which had been demanding some forthright action on the problem of that nothing could be done but repeating his promise of dominion status for India the So far this problem was the most trying one facing the In Burma they had found what they were up with the Burmese revolutionaries joining the and many of the others turning frankly against all white The British defenders of cut off by these had been forced to retreat more and and in a daring had struck and had smashed their way close to their Chinese and began a by fight with them in Central What Britain feared more than anything was a frank and open uprising of all of India's and to this the best Churchill could do had been to re-offer what had been offered back in and had accomplished But this time he went a little fur-I He told the Indians the government had adopted a definite plan as to how the dominion status would be carried and that he was sending his own right-hand Sir Stafford Cripps personally to India to explain it all to India's religious and caste problems and whether Cripps could dig his hand into India and come out with Britain's little white rabbit remained to be He was a miracle man in and a miracle man before Could he perform a third in this Britain hoped Millions Pay Millions of many of them making their first trip to Uncle Sam's tax had made their income tax returns for but only a percentage of them were able to pay the full amount At the same time they were aware that 1943 taxes would be much and there were thousands who had a different picture of their family budgets after making their returns than they did In the in though some government authorities were against the sales tax as putting the burden on the began serious consideration of some form of sales tax as being probably less painful and more sure of large returns than increased income The house ways and means committee had taken the bit between its teeth in demanding that treasury officials furnish them with data on the probable yield of some form of sales Secretary had taken the position that a sales tax would be not only putting the heaviest burden on the but that it would be The great question in Washington among certain congressmen was is now pointing out that the income tax was already taking all that most people felt they could and the sales tax though increasing the cost of Strong support had come for these congressmen from William J. head of the New York State Chamber of who suggested a graduated retail sales tax to raise about only a billion more to be brought with increased income I Need Man Power For Spring Drive Whether Germany was planning peace or London had been hearing reports that the Nazis were seriously short of manpower which was needed for the spring offensive against The first indication of this was when the Nazis issued an estimate of losses thus far in the war which was by far the largest figure they had ever though still far short of the Reds' The Germans admitted loss of men since the start of the and said that half of these had been lost in the winter on the Russian The report had come out of London that the Nazis now were asking for fresh troops from Hungary and Slovakia for the spring offensive Soviet authorities claimed that the Germans had lost men on the Russian winter front of these seriously and the rest missing or Of the new troops Germany was said to be asking for from from Italy and from Slovakia Rumania was said to have given an army of last but the Reds asserted that practically all of these had been wiped On Bataan Though there had been little action on Bataan there had been a change in Japanese commanders with General Horn-ma reported to have plunged a ceremonial knife into his own rotund and General the conqueror of reportedly taking over in his In the best tradition of the to be replaced by another general as having failed calls for a quiet trip into a secluded there to take a swift trip to visit one's No soft berth at a desk awaits the unsuccessful commander in the For him comes swift and death just as at his own Such is the code of the When General Homma met General MacArthur he met more than a superior general and superior fighting men he met the end of the At the time was organizing his forces for the purpose of wiping out MacArthur and thus wiping away his predecessor's dishonor of encountering some of his there was a huge demand HOMMA Death the Samurai sweeping the country for some definite answer as to why substantial aid could not be sent to the Accompanying this was some fairly sharp criticism of the administration and its conduct of the But in the main the response of the public to the Aid to campaign was rather a tribute to a hero than any suggestion as to how the job might possibly be done The President had told his press tell me how to get the help and I'll send To this poser the answer had not yet MOVING For Aliens Pacific coast residents were told that the huge machinery necessary for moving about enemy ab-ens and American citizens of Japanese extraction out of the coastal area was finally complete The work of moving the government had might start any Where they would be there had been little but two sections had been one of them in Idaho and another in It was to be a huge but with the war going as it had been ui the white residents of the Pacific coast would breathe more easily when they had As the war fronts were so the rumor factories kept turning out bigger and bigger Widely circulated in the United Stales had been two of that Churchill would be out and Cripps in as premier in three the other that Germany was about to seek peace with Most observers agreed that any- I thing was possible in this but the two rumors had been greeted in England with smiles and |