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.