MISSION TO TOKIO

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 280, 21 August 1940, Page 7

MISSION TO TOKIO

Action By Australia

IMPORTANCE TO DOMINION

Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, August 20.

New Zealand, as well as Australia, should welcome the Federal Government's decision to appoint a Minister to Tokio and to welcome a Japanese Minister in Canberra, says the ‘‘Auckland Star” in an editorial. It is an important step in pursuit of a policy based on tardy recognition by Australians that their country is a Power in the Pacific, and as such should have direct representation in the capitals of ollier I’owers.

Tito policy, as Mr. Menzies explained last year, is not one “that will be content with pious statements of our desire to be friendly with other Pacific countries, but a positive policy of set ting up real machinery for the attaining of friendship and the putting of that friendship on a firm footing.” The first appointment wtU that of Mr. Casey to Washington, and now the Government has emphasized the importance it attaches to the Tokio post by choosing for it Sir John Latham, the Chief Justice of the High Court, in future, then, Australia’s interests and outlook will be represented directly in Japan by one of the most distinguished Australians, and, equally important, the Government at Canberra will be continually informed, by one responsible to no country except Australia, of events and tendencies iu Japan. Prejudice and Doubt. The fact is that Australia and New Zealand know very little about Japanese policy iu relation to themselves; but prejudice and doubt arising out of ignorance are widespread. As to Japanese policv in relation to the United Kingdom’s financial and commercial interests in East Asia gene rally there is, unfortunately, no doubt, but the- common apprehension based on the assumption that Japan Ims hostile designs on the Commonwealth and the Dominion is extremely diflicult to support by concrete facts or by strategic probabilities. If Japan should ever come into armed conflict with the United Kingdom, the Dominions would be involved in that conflict —and one can do no less than prepare against the possibility—but. as Mr. .Menzies has said truly, “We do not keep the peace by exhibiting prejudices or passion in relation to those who might be our friends.” Great questions tire at issue, or will be at issue—in the Pacific, but it would be stupid and fatalistic to assume that they can bo resolved only by war. The Australian Government has resolved to make its contribution toward a more rational solution, and the New Zealand Government, retire seating a Dominion probably too small to think of the appointing of diplomatic representatives in foreign countries, might well consider how it can associate itself with, and benefit from. Sir John Latham’s mission.