BLAND ATTITUDE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 172, 22 July 1940, Page 9

BLAND ATTITUDE.

— ■ m MINISTER FROM U.S.A. AUSTRALIA AND EAST.

PRINCE KONOTE'S MESSAGE. (Special—By Air Mail) SYDNEY, July 17. Mr. Clarence E. Gauss, the first resident Minister to represent a foreign Power in Australia, arrived in Sydney yesterday and will be officially welcomed to-morrow. Australia's main foreign interests are of course in the East, anc President Roosevelt, with this in mind, has sent us a Minister who has spent 26 years out of his 34 in the State Department's service in China. Sydney reporters soon discovered that Mr. Gauss haa absorbed a good deal of the bland Chinese attitude and knows how to keep silent. He was quite willing to tell them a good story about himself and his family, but resolutely refused to say anything at all about conditions or events in the Far East.

Mr. Gauss' arrival has renewed demands in. the Press for the appointment of an Australian Minister at Tokyo. This is another matter which the Federal Government has been talking about for months, if not years, but has done nothing about.

The appointment of a Minister to Tokyo was also urged this week by Professor P. V. Russo, of Tokyo University, who is visiting Australia. A former Victorian, he is. advisory associate for Australian affairs to the Society for International Cultural Relations. Professor Russo said Australia's future in the Pacific must harmonise with Japan's aspirations. Japan would not try to extend her sphere of political influence to Australia, although ehe naturally desired to extend her commercial interests.

Professor Russo brought with him to Australia a message from Prince Konoye, who ia president of the Society for International Cultural Relations, leader of the one-party movement in Japan, and is mentioned in to-day's cables as the possible new Japanese Premier in succession to Admiral Yonai. The message said: "At this time, particularly when the world is divided into opposing camps, we must renew our faith in the efficacy of international cultural understandings as a way to lasting peace and common prosperity. Australia and Japan are two vital dynamic countries, whose cultural co-operation can do much to foster the cause of universal enlightenment through peaceful mediums of art and science. Japan gladly invites her neighbour, Australia, to co-operate in this cultural mission for promotion of international goodwill and betterment of the human race."