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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 16, 20 April 1940, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The German occupation of Denmark brought the question of Greenland forward as a factor of no small importance making for the involvement of the U.S. in the European war.
Now the threatened extension of the war to Holland is raising – even before the event – the issue of the fabulously wealthy Dutch East Indies, the great oil and rubber producing archipelago which abuts the southeastern end of the Asiatic continent, lying close to British Malaya, French Indo-China, and the U.S. possession, the Philippines.
On April 15 Japanese Foreign Minister Hachro Arita announced in effect that Japan would tolerate no change in the status of the Dutch East Indies except their conversion into the Japanese East Indies. In veiled but unmistakable language he warned Japan’s rivals to keep “hands off” these islands, and the whole Japanese press took up the chorus.
When Germany took Denmark, Great Britain simply seized the North Atlantic and announced a “protectorate” over Iceland. The knottier question of Greenland has been left in abeyance because of the ticklish question of U.S. intervention in the matter. (President Roosevelt wasted no time in suddenly getting worried about the food supplies of Greenland’s inhabitants!)
But the case of the Dutch East Indies is a little different. There is no naval force at present in Far Eastern waters which can, at the present moment, prevent Japanese seizure of the archipelago. Last year the British and French Far Eastern fleets held extensive maneuvers in those waters.
At that time the significant presence on the scene of an American cruiser was made the occasion for widespread reports that the U.S. Navy was actually expected to play the role of policeman in this vital sector of inter-imperialist strategy when the other Powers became involved in war in Europe. This was hotly denied at the time but the time is drawing near when hands are going to be called.
Neither Britain nor United States imperialism can easily allow the Japanese to gain possession of these islands. In the one case, it would place British India directly under Japanese guns. In the other case it would provide Japan with vast resources in oil, rubber, etc. which would tremendously enhance Japan’s military and naval strength.
Britain, certainly, is not going to be able to enforce any “protectorate” over the Indies in case Holland is swallowed by Germany unless the U.S. Navy – right now maneuvering over thousands of miles of the Pacific – is ready to play a major role in making it effective. The degree of this readiness of the U.S. will determine the Japanese strategy. Japan used the last war of the powers to make a grab for sections of China. It will do likewise this time, except that now Wall Street imperialism stands far readier to resist the further expansion of its Nipponese rival.
In this situation, involving the fates of millions of people on the other side of the world, the threat of American imperialist intervention into the war comes dangerously close.
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