The Long Designs Of Japan In

The South Seas

Fortifications in the Marshall Group

THAT Japan is doing a great deal in fortifying certain islands in the Marshall and Caroline Groups (now held under Mandate by Japan) is stated in a private letter to the editor of this journal by an experienced British skipper who has been cruising in and about the Central Pacific for the last 25 years.

In our February issue we published extracts from a letter written in November, 1933, by a man who had recently travelled through the Marshall and Caroline Islands, and who declared that nowhere did he see any indication of fortifications. He said that the story that Japan was building naval bases there was false; and he also described as a fabrication the statement that an American, with some unexplained official connection, was slain somewhere in the Carolines, and that the Japanese authorities blamed bandits for the crime.

The British skipper declares that this is nonsense. Any visitor to those islands is not allowed to see any more than the commercial activities of the Japanese and

the progress they are making in improv ing the islands. Natives are not permitted to utter one word against the Japanese and all foreigners are closely watched, The principal naval activities are taking place on the islands of Wotje and Eniwe tok, and no foreigner has an opportunity of visiting those places. (Wotje is a large atoll near the centre of the Marshall Group, almost due north of Jaluit, on the 170th degree of longitude, and 9 degrees south latitude. Eniwetok, or Brown Atoll, is the most north-westernly of the Marshall Group and is about 400 miles north of Ponape; its longitude is approximately 163 degrees and its latitude about 12 degrees south).

Our correspondent gives us a report provided by a friend of his who was actu ally present in the Marshall Islands about 17 years ago, when they were occupied by the Japanese, on an occasion when a Japanese Naval Governor addressing an assemblage of natives warned them that “these islands now belong to Japan and

will belong to Japan so long as Japan exists.”

Our correspondent says emphatically that the report about the murder of the American was not “moonshine.” The inci dent did not occur recently, but about 14 years ago. He was suspected and watched by the Japanese and eventually he was seized, and he died mysteriously at Yap.

The Japanese took his diary and other papers and these proved that he was an American intelligence officer.

Our correspondent concludes in this emphatic manner: “One gets sick of the cheap mouthings of people who get only a surface glance when passing through these islands. Anyone who knows the Central Pacific has no doubt of the long designs of Japan in the South Seas. And anyone who has had any dealings with the Japanese under their own flag knows that they despise all white races.”