Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1926. JAPAN'S ASPIRATIONS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLVII, Issue 10700, 4 August 1926, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1926. JAPAN'S ASPIRATIONS.

The holding of the Pan-Asian Conference 1 —the first in which representatives of the Oriental peoples have met to demand racial equality with Europeans —affords striking evidence of the strong current of revolt that runs through the coloured races

against the white man's dominance. Japan is the leading spirit 1 in the new movement; she is potentially already the leader of Asia; her voice is louder, more far-reaching, insistent, and effective than that of any other Asiatic nation. It is a voice more in harmony with that of Asia than that of any Occidental Power in Asia. This fact was freely admitted

when Japan took her seat as an equal at the Peace Conference of Versailles, at the Supreme Council of the League of Nations, and especially at the Washington Conference of 1921, where Japan spoke in the name of, Asia, and entered into an agreement with England and America, guaranteeing peace on the Pacific for the ensuing ten years. A country of 77,000,000 people, including Korea, with an Imperial dynasty extending back beyond that of any reigning house of Europe, a defensive equipment. and personnel second to none, Japan to-day commands greater political, military, and economic powers tha-n

the rest of Asia together. _ In his book, "Japan from Within," J. Ingram Bryan says that Occidental aggression in Asia has been intensive, and Asia regards it as for purposes of material gain. But the writer points out that, while no doubt many Englishspeaking people, now comfortably residing in the East or retired on a competence at Home, could not have done so had they not been able to make more money abroad than at Home, this fact does not necessarily imply the enrichment of the West at the expense of the East. There is always a mutual exchange of values and service, else such relations would cease.

A more disturbing factor, he declares," does more to create distrust than all other grievances combined. Asia charges the West with a spirit of racial discrimination. British dominions have raised a barrier against the immigration of Asiatics. The United States of America pursue a similar policy. Over this, all Asia is angry. But English-speaking nations cannot welcome unlimited immigration from Asia, the writer says mildly. This is not due to race or colour, but to moral and economic reasons. It is the conviction of the West that the way

to meet the East on even terms is not to bring down Western standards of labour and wages to those of the East, but to have the East rise to the level of the West. Mr Bryan asks: As it is diversity of ( ideals that creates diversities of ] wages and needs, can the East s ever meet the demands of the < West as to terms of association ? < It is difficult to see how the East \ can rise to Western standards, I except bv assimilation with West- t era civilisation. *