AMERICAN INTEREST IN DOMINION

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 276, 18 August 1944, Page 4

AMERICAN INTEREST IN DOMINION

Significant Arrival

OFFICIAL OF OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, August 17.

Significant of United States interest in New Zealand is the arrival in Auckland of Mr. Sydney Green'bie, who will leave for Wellington tomorrow to become chief of the Office of War Information for New Zealand and special assistant to the American Minister, Mr. K. S. Patton. Sir. Greenbie has been a specialist in Pacific affairs for many years,- and is the author of 18 books, six of which deal with the Pacific and Far East. He spent about a year in New Zealand as a young man and later lived for three years in Japan. Mr. Greenbie is accompanied by Mrs. Greenbie, who is a well-known authoress in her own right. This is the first time New Zealand has had a representative of the Office of War Information attached to the American Legation. Mr. Greenbie was asked if there was any special reason for his appointment. He said it was to be found in the fact that the United States realized very clearly that the security of New Zealand and Australia meant security’ for itself and his appointment was only one of many signs of American interest in the Doiiiiniop. . His duties, Mr. Greenbie said, would include the collection of information about New Zealand and its dispatch to Washington, -where the Office of War Information and the State Department were acting in close relationship. Mr. Greenbie said one of the things which he hoped to do in New Zealand was the formation of a New Zealand-American society or similar organization. It would be composed of New Zealanders and Americans and its purpose would be to increase friendly relations between the two countries by providing means for exchanging information, opinion and thought. Another matter which would receive his attention. Mr. Greenbie said, was the establishment of scholarships which New Zealanders could use in the United States. This proposal was not yet in concrete form, either as to the number, value or conditions of the scholarships, but it was. he said, indicative of American interest in New Zealand and the future of Pacific relations. Mr. Greenbie said his first visit to New Zealand, Australia. Fiji. Samoa. China, Japan and other Pacific countries was the result of a conviction he gained as a young man in California that the Pacific and its future were of tremendous importance. It was a conviction which he had never lost.

When he .was in Japan during the. last war. he did some work for the British newspaper, the “Japan Chronicle,” published in Kobe, and be recalled that even then, at a time when those islands which later became Japanese mandates were still German possessions, the then Prime Minister of Japan had told him that if the United States did not fortify .the Philippines. Japan would uot fortify the Mariannes. Danger of Surrender.

Mr. Greenbie was asked if he thought Japan would surrender. He said the greatest danger the Allies faced Wtis a Japanese surrender. He could imagine action in Japan whereby the ruling “moguls” would be killed or deposed for the purpose of a national surrender, but the danger would be’ that such an action would not be taken for the purpose of ending the war or of changing the pattern of Japanese life, but only for the sake of gaining a breathing space to prepare for the continuation of the war at a later and favourable opportunity. In his opinion, the end which had to be achieved by the Allies was one under which they would impose their will upon Japan for the sake of future security. Japan would have to be so reorganized that her industrial capacity, which for so. long had been used for war and preparation for war, would be turned completely over to production for the benefit and welfare of the people. In the past this had been completely neglected through the over-riding demands of military preparation. Japan, it was true, had electricity, but there was only one light with, say, a 20-watt bulb in each house. Electric stoves, heaters, refrigerators and all other appliances for which electricity had been used in other countries were unknown to the people, as were the usual baths, basins and sinks to be seen in western houses. • x The reason for these. and other things which the Japanese people did not have and never had a chance to have was that the country’s industrial capacity had not’ been developed for the use of the people. However, he believed the industrialists and the people could be shown what had been missed through concentration on war needs and through this would realize the advantages of peace. This would lead to the change in outlook which was essential for neace in the Pacific in the future. Mr. Greenbie has been with the Office of War Information for more than two years. Before that, in addition to his many years of travelling in the Pacific, Far East, and Latin America, his activities included many lecture tours in the United States. For four years also, he was a lecturer under the United States Office of Education. He was also president of the Floating University.