One of the newspapers of Japan, the "Yorodzu," has given a new turn to the Singapore naval base contrive y, bringing forward the hypothe:
is that in the event of war between) Japan and the United States, t Britain might place it at the service the Jatter. The foundation for this view is a speech deliver recently by Admiral Strauss, who formerly commanded the American Asiatic Squadvon, The Admiral laid emphasis on the fact that America has no naval base in the Pacific, and as a result of that, any American man-of-war damaged in battle would become a total loss. This view of his was backed up by some other speaker at the same meeting who suggested that Japan might sue-ceed in occupying Guam and the Philippines before the U. Fleet were out of sight of Hawaii, and it seems to have been a realization of the complete denial by Japan of cither of these places as a base that caused the "Yuradozw? to invent its theory about Singapore. The suggestion hardly does credit to the "Yorod: zv," for as much as anything else the Singapore base is designed to put Great Britain such a position that in the event of a Pacific war between other Powers she would have the strength at hand to preserve her own neutrality and it might even be that of the Dutch colonies as well. The Japanese paper's view is without doubt prompted by the feeling of isolation which at times seems to overwhelm all Japanese thought,. and the same feeling equally causes the orodzn" to believe in the possibility of China placing her harbours and resources at the disposal of the United States. In the present state of polities between the two countries there is more to back up the latter suggestion, but even so, many considerations seem to have been omitted in getting up this latter scare.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.