Study Of South-east Asia Advocated

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 7

Study Of South-east Asia Advocated

It behoved New Zealanders to know their South-east Asian neighbours better and to appreciate their aspirations and ambitions, said the Minister of Education (Mr Kinsella) when he officially opened an Asian studies seminar for 950 Christchurch sixth-form pupils in the Civic Theatre. No country could get far without an understanding and knowledge of its neighbours and sympathy for them, said Mr Kinsella. Sympathy and tolerance were the greatest aids to co-operation. New Zealand was an isolated country, and until recently had not had good communications with other countries. lacking an appreciation of what was going on around it.

New Zealand was one of the more developed countries, and a very, very wealthy one. There were very few other countries where the standard

of living and well-being of the people were so great. But it must not only contribute to its neighbours; it must accept from them if it was to grow closer to them.

Mr Kinsella said that New Zealand was in a unique position in that it was a small country with no axe to grind, of no threat to other countries, tolerant, and having solved the racial problems that beset other parts of the world. It was important to be accepted and liked for those reasons and consequently in a position to give leadership. Mr Kinsella said that New Zealand was a Pacific country ringed with peoples with whom it had had little contact in the past. “But we are growing out of our isolation,” he said. “Distances are shrinking; the world is growing smaller in the sense of time and distance; and we are growing closer together.”