AUSTRALIA AND THE EAST

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21118, 20 March 1934, Page 9

AUSTRALIA AND THE EAST

Mission to China and Japan NOT ONLY A TRADE VENTURE il'.l-Uor..Uil-Cni\-;.':cu!.| (Received March 19, 9.40 p.m.)

SYDNEY, March 19. Mr J. G. Latham, AttorneyGeneral, arrived here to-day on his way to The East, and addressed a gathering of the League of Nations Union, the Institute of International Allan's, and the consular representatives of Japan. China, ar.d the Netherlands. Mr Latham said that his mission to the East would be in the nature of a courtesy or complimentary visit. It was not a trade mission, for to make ftieiid.-hip dependent wholly on tiade relationships would be to break up human society. "Our neighbours in the East are most important to \is from the point of \ iew of trade, but also from another and larger point of view," he said. The Commonwealth Government felt it would be better able to dual with the problems now arising if Australia had a more direct relationship \v:;h its friends in the East. The mission was going with the entire approval of the British Foreign Gi'tlee. Sir Thomas Bavin, in the course of a speech, remarked that this was the first occasion the Australian Government that exercised the powers now attributed to the Dominions of entering into direct diplomatic relationship wilh foreign countries.