By HAL GRIFFIN

Highway To
The Future |

OMEWHERE in Japan today a dapper little man is witnessing the collapse of his years of

scheming to prepare Alaska and the Pacific Coast for Japanese domination. As Japan-
e consul in Vancouver, Hirochiro Nemichi had only a part in Japan’s entire plan of con-
test unfolded with such terrifying speed in the months following the attack on Pearl
arbor, but when he returned to Japan in 1939 he had every reason to believe he had done

5 work well.

Those were the years, as RCMP
‘tective Sergeant J. K. Barnes
tified before the Cameron Com-
ssion, when Japanese na-
nals in Canada were officially
rarded as “friendly neutrals”
i allowed to spread fascist
»paganda without restriction,
i Hirochire Nemichi, like other
2anese consuls in other cities
'the Pacifie, made full use of
opportunities.
Prom where he sat in his of
2 in the Marine Building he
iuld look out over Burrard Inlet
d see ships carrying concen-
tes and scrap metals to Japan.
, could see the blue-green slopes
the North Shore mountains and
2am of the day when Japan
ght control all the vast re

irces lying northward and
yond.
Nemichi knew a great deal

cut British -Columia’s great

natural wealth, its minerals, its
timber, its fisheries, for his in-
Spired hand guided the formation
of many companies, with “respect-
able” white directors, to purchase
and lease these resources. The

_ custodian of enemy property has

now taken over Japanese inter-
ests in these companies, but most
of the companies and their white
directors remain.

It is doubtful, however, if Ne-
michi spent much time day-
dreaming. He was too busy di-
recting Japanese propaganda ac-
tivities, blandly protesting his
country’s desire for Canada’s
friendship, representing Japan’s
War on China as an inspired cru-
sade to save the Chinese people
from themselves, utilizing his in-
fluence to block the embargo
movement, strengthening fascist
organization among the 25,000 Jap-
anese in British Columbia.

World Highway Plan
Held To Be Feasible

ICE PRESIDENT HENRY A. WALLACE’S plan
: for a world-girdling highway and air route is con-
sidered an entirely feasible enterprise here.

(Wallace, in his speech to the rally held in Madison
Square Garden to mark the Soviet Union’s 25th an-

niversary, Said:

ce

Then he said:

“*You and I will live to see the day’.’’)
_ Army engineers already have pushed through a
pioneer highway to Alaska and it is open for traffic.
It is, to be sure, a rough road—corduroy and dirt, but
When the engineers have completed their
job, contracts will be let to private builders for surfacing.
The completed job will cost about $35,000,000.
- In addition to the highway, the U.S. interior depart-
ment operates a railroad between Anchorage and Fair
banks through Seward and the McKinley National Parl.
The Richardson highway parallels this railroad and car-
ries the Alaskan highway north from Seward, its

passable:

terminus.

To earry the road system to the Bering Strait, where
it might be connected by ferry with a Siberian highway,
would be a big project, but no bigger than that already

accomplished.

The Pan-American highway already is an excellent
motor road between Texas and Mexico City. This part
of it was built partially with PWA loans, in cooperation
with the Mexican government. To extend this highway
on through Central America to the South American con-
tinent and then on south to Argentina, while an enormous
undertaking, would be wholly feasible.

- . - 1 would like to refer to a conversation with
Molotov, when he was here last spring. Thinking of the
unemployment and misery which might so easily follow
this war,-I spoke of the need for productive public works
program which would stir the imagination of all the
peoples of the world and suggested as a starter a com-
bined highway and airway from southern South Am-
erica across the United States, Canada, and Alaska, into
Siberia and on to Europe with feeder highways and air-
ways from China, India, and the Middle East. Molotov’s
first reaction was: INo one nation can do it by itself.’

WASHINGTON.

. Pacifie

UL WNemichi’s great concern,

reflecting the fear of the Jap-
anese imperialists, was “to dis-
courage and obstruct construction
of the Alaska Hishway. It alarm-
ed him when the labor movement
in British Columbia and the
neighboring state of Washington
in 1937-38 conducted a wide cam-
paign for immediate building of
the road that would link the
United States, through British Co-
lumbia, with its great undeveloped
Territory of Alaska.

Labor was interested first in
providing adequate defense of the
Goast against possible
Japanese aggression, and second,
in providing work for thousands
of unemployed men. And the ar-
Suments labor used then in sup-
port of its demand today have a
prophetic ring. Four years ago,
summarizing these arguments, I
wrote:

. With increasing appre-
hension, people on the coast see
Japan carving her way towards
a goal she has declared to be
nothing short of complete dom-
ination of the Pacific. ...A
fascist aggressor establishing
bases in Alaska. the Aleutian
Islands or Hawaii would be with-
in easy striking distance of
Vancouver, just as Seattle and
San Francisco can be menaced
by a fascist aggressor obtaining a
foothold in British Columbia.
Would Canadian democracy be
more secure if Japan were ‘es-
tablished in the Aleutian Islands
or on the Aljaska-Yukon
border?”

Hirochiro WNemichi understood
the significance of the Alaska
Highway to the defense of North
America, for even while he pro-
fessed his desire for Canadian-
Japanese friendship he was carry-
ing out his government’s instruc-
tions in preparation for war.

The Japanese imperialists real-
ized the strategic importance of
Alaska, -with its Aleutian Island
chain pointing like a dagger at
the heart of Japan, to their gran-
diose scheme for domination of
the Pacific. Alaska, defenseless
and unlinked with American in-
dustrial centers, accessible only
by vulnerable sea routes, repre-
sented no insuperable obstacle to
their plans. Alaska as a heavily
fortified outpost of American—
and Canadian democracy, sup-
plied over relatively secure land
and air routes, threatened their
entire scheme with disaster.

When, in 1938, it seemed poss-
ible that work might be started
on the highway, the Japanese gov-
ernment made a strong protest to
the Chamberlain government. And
Hirochiro Nemichi flew to White-
horse to make a direct report to
his government. :

That report must have been re-
assuring, for the Alaska Highway
was not built—not then.

ESS than four years later the
exigencies of war have ach-
ieved what the peacetime move-
Ment could not do and with a

speed none would have thought
possible in those peacetime years.

“Work for five thousand men

for five years” was the slogan
of the peacetime movement. Unit-
ed States Army Engineers units,
with six thousand civilian work-
ers, have completed a rough high-
way stretching 1,681 miles through
the wilderness of the Canadian
north in seven months and sev-
enteen days. Today the Alcan
Highway links Fairbanks in Alas-
ka with Edmonton in Alberta and
through Edmonton with the great
industrial centers of the eastern
United States and Canada.

Japan, by its seizure of Kiska,
one 6f the three westernmost of
the Aleutian Islands, has tempor-
arily blunted the point of the dag-
ger threatening Japan. Construc-
tion of the Alcan Highway will
place the full strength of Ameri-
ca’s industrial sinews behind that
dagger and, when the time comes,
plunge it deep into the heart of
Japanese imperialism.

With the highway completed,
the transformation of Alaska from
a defense base to a springboard
for offensive operations is hasten-
ed.

UT the Alean Highway is more

4 than a vital communication
line to Alaska. It is the highway
to the future, the broad road over
the top of the world of tomorrow
which will link the United States
and Canada with the Soviet Union
and .facilitate the cooperation of
their peoples in building the post-
war world.

As Vice-President Henry A.
Wallace said in his address to the
Madison Square rally commorat-
ing the 25th anniversary of the
Soviet Union, the Alean Highway
is the pilot road for-a greater
highway which will link the Am-
ericas with Europe and Asia at
the Bering Straits.

History was made that Novem-
ber day when, the last river bridg-
ed behind them, the last windfall
thrust aside by their blunt noses,
two U.S. Army bulldozers crashed
through the willows to link the
two ends of the Alean Highway.

And it was perhaps symbolic of
the future in which, to use Vice-
President Wallace’s words, ‘the
American and Russian people can
and will throw their influence on
the side of building a new democ-
racy which will be the hope of
all the world,’ that two drivers
who jumped from their bulldozers
to grasp hands were a private
from Kennedy, Texas, and a negro
corporal from Philadelphia.

MAT the Alcan Highway will

mean to Canada — Canada,
whose vast northern territories
are so like those of the USSR,
whose problems of developing
these territories are in so many
respects similar—is foreshadowed
in the untold natural riches made
accessible by construction of the
road,

The mountain wilderness of
forest and muskege across which
the highway winds its tortuous
course is Canada’s last frontier,
hitherto penertated only by the
Indians and a few prospectors and
trappers. It-is a vast, sketchily.
mapped country, this northern sec-
tion of a province where develop-
ment has largely been confined
to south of latitude 55, but it is
a country with a future. :

Oil and timber, gold, mercury
and radium, wait for the hands of
a Virile and industrious people and
wilderness will give way to thriv-
ing cities far beyond the present
limits of civilization as they are
developed. Canadians, adapting
and learning from Soviet experi-
ences, Can open up a preat new
country within their own borders.

And 300 miles north o£ Idmon-
ton in Alberta lie 10;000 square
miles of oil sands, fabulously rich
in the raw materials from whieh
synthetic rubber, asphalt, high-
octane gasoline and fuel oil can
be manufactured.

e@ =

/ Pee Bone by “military consid-

erations, Canada is expandins-
northward, pushing the frontiers
of Civilization towards its sub-arc-
tic regions, as the Soviet Union
has already explored and develop-
ed its sub-arctic regions, and be-
ginning to appreciate the great
potentialities of its own far north.

Tomorrow, where the rough but
passable Alean Highway now runs,
may see a broad globe-girdling
highway running to the Bering
Sea to meet a Soviet highway
across the 55-miles wide Bering
Straits. Tomorrow, where deadly
bombers now land on their flight
to the fog-shrouded isles to which
a doomed enemy clings desperate-
ly, may see great transports fly-
ing between the Soviet Union and
Canada.

In this country of boundiess
horizons there need not be, there
must not be any limits to the
future of peaceful constructive co-
operation between the peoples of
Canada, the United States and tne
Soviet Union now being forged in
the fires of war.