American Viewpoint On Pacific Islands

Under the headings, “PIM Reports On Down Under —Australian Publication Gives Lowdown on International Re lations,” John C. Davis, in Cleveland Plain Dealer (one of the best known American Midwest newspapers) of May 21, says something interesting about the attitude of the United States to wards Pacific Territories. The article follows: BEFORE Pearl Harbour for most Ameri cans (at least those of us here in the Midwest) the world was of a normal size. The 3,000-mile bastion of the Atlantic and the 6,000-mile spread of the Pacific gave us a sense of security from the ills that beset less fortunate peoples.

Then the Japs, whom we held in slight regard, bridged the 4,000 Pacific miles

separating them from the Hawaiian Islands and dealt from the air a crip pling blow. Those bombs that crippled our fleet and killed our boys while they slept jarred midwestern America from its se curity and its isolationism.

Because we have more here to protect than any people anywhere, and because we saw the danger could come from air borne war, we became immediately in terested in every remote nook and cranny of a world that had shrunk to the size of an apple.

Islands Monthly One of the most revealing purveyors of information is the Pacific Islands Monthly, a magazine published in Aus tralia and covering the happenings and thinking of folks in that island con tinent and its adjacent isles. It is familiar

territory to hundreds of thousands o American boys who fought their wa T , island by island, from New Guinea to thr Japanese home islands.

Small World John Crossen, lawyer, a classmate o mine at Western Reserve 25 years ago who put in three and a half years as aj artillery officer out there in World Wa 11, has sent me the March issue of It is jam-packed with items showing th keen interest those folks have in thing American and international. It nrove how small the world has become. Fron editorials to news items, it frankly voice the thought that the South Pacific des tiny is tied with the United States rathe than the colonial nations of Europe, th British, Dutch and French.

It burns with indignation at the Britis Labour government, a party that ws tossed out of office in Australia last elec tion. It seems that the Labour drove a long-term contract to purchas South Pacific copra (product of the cc conut tree used in making soap an margarine) at 55 pounds sterling a toi Then they devalued the pound but di not raise the copra price. The conse quence is that British interests are buy ing the stuff at about half the world pric: It has the rugged citizens from “dow yonder” burning.

The Japanese Another item that has blood pressure at the boiling point is word that we ar willing to consider resettlement of abou 5,000,000 Japanese from the homelands t New Guinea as part of our treaty agree ment with them. The Anzacs figure ths many Japanese, most alert and progres sive of the Asian peoples, would socc transform the world’s second large;; island, rich in natural resources, into South Pacific power that would oves shadow, perhaps even endanger, the Aus. tralian-New Zealand orbit.

Another piece of pithy comment cove];

Col. Phelps Phelps, of New York, just ap pointed civil governor of the American Samoa. It seems that Col. Phelps is a bachelor. However happy that condition is supposed to be over nere, it is frowned upon by the Polynesian citizenry of our newly acquired territory. Fact is, as PIM points out, “this is an affront to the tra ditional culture and conventions of the Samoans, who will be embarrassed for him.”

It seems a fellow doesn’t really rate in Samoa until he heads a family and de monstrates ability to keep a wife under control. And that seems to bust wide open the idea that South Pacific Islands are a paradise.