ACROSS THE PACIFIC

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 48, 26 February 1937, Page 10

ACROSS THE PACIFIC

A CANADIAN'S VIEWS.

TIES WITH NEW ZEALAND.

THE PEACEFUL. PACIFIC.

Now a resident of New Zealand, but at present on a visit to his Canadian home, Major Sydney Wren had much to say in praise of New Zealand to a Toronto "Star" interviewer.

"Mountains," he said, "form the backbone of our North as well as South Islands. Right now you can golf and play tennis, cricket and football on the coast, for it is our summer season, but you do not have to go far into the mountains to find snow for skiing. New Zealand has many alpine resorts."

Everything grows luxuriantly in New Zealand. The sheep there have-, thicker wool and produce more tender cutlets than elsewhere. Imported Scottish deer grew half as big again. Canadian rainbow trout introduced into the mountain tarns and torrents attain the proportions of maokinonge. In fact, New Zealand would be an earthly Paradise were it not for Europe and its war clouds.

"If you take a look at the map you might wonder what we have to do with Europe. We are certainly far endugh away. Yet Europe cost us 16,000 of my own generation.

"New Zealand and Canada are both on the same ocean, the world's biggest ocean. We are both Pacific peoples with common Pacific interests which are very different from European interests. The Pan-American Union might very well be extended into a Pan Pacific union to include us both. In a short time, when the China Clipper extends its Pacific route, it will be possible to fly from Toronto to my home in New Zealand in seven days.

"The peoples on the Pacific," said he, "live up to their name. They are more concerned with the arts of peace than is Europe at present. I would like to see the peoples of the Pacific band together to boycott European militarism. Europe is a cockpit and a madhouse. There is no cure for its warring nationalism. It is certain to tear itself to pieces with its age-old hatreds. Why should the peoples of the western hemisphere and the Pacific share in its blood bath ?"

His opinions of Europe are not those of a transient tourist. After the war, as a trade emissary, he resided in the majority of the European capitals. "I did not get into Russia." said he. "but I had a close-up of it from Latvia. Russia is part and parcel of the European militarist picture." Yellow Peril Not a Bogy. He sees no hope of peace in Europe. The psychology and history of the continent is against it. Europe is not pacific. It is paranoiac. Spain is merely one symptom of a general homicidal condition. He cannot see what the nations who live along the Pacific on the edge of Paradise islands, full of coconut palms and breadfruit, have to do with bread lines and bristling cannon.

"But," said the interviewer, "are not Japan, China and Russia, too. on the Pacific? And are not New Zealand and Australia in fear of 'being conquered by Japan?"

"The yellow peril," replied the New Zealander, "is not as great a bogy to us as some people imagine. We are more afraid of war in Europe. I do not think the Japanese have any ambition to plant population in New Zealand and Australia. Manchukuo offers plenty of room for their surplus. I think any friction we might have with Japan is capable of peaceful solution.

"Of course, you could have war on the Pacific as well as anywhere else, but I think there is more hope for permanent peace there, on the basis of mutual interests. Rivalries there are not so acute. The problem of frontiers does not exist. There is plenty of room for the peaceful development of great nations.

"Australasian and Canadian interests are in the Pacific rather than in Europe. We have more commercial ties with South American countries and the United States, China and Japan than with Germany, Italy and the Balkans. The problem of Pacific relations is one of the most important problems to us and I think you will find that Pacific news will tend to bulk larger in the Press of this continent than European news. lam sure the western peoples are becoming fed up with Europe and its war fever."