GROWING DESIRE FOR THE BRITISH WAY OF LIFE IN THE EAST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23153, 16 January 1950, Page 4

GROWING DESIRE FOR THE BRITISH WAY OF LIFE IN THE EAST

WELLINGTON, Jan. 14. “Though British sovereignty has passed from hundreds of millions of people in Southern and South-Eastern Asia, their desire for the best in the British wav of is growing, and there has never been so favourable a moment as the nresent for making that culture available to them.” That view was expressed at a press conference last night by the British Council representative in Australia, Sir Angus Gillan, who is at present in Wellington in the exercise of the wider sphere of his duties, which includes contacts with council representatives in various parts of the Pacific. In Indonesia, said Sir Angus, it was proposed to make England the second language of the republic. The Indonesians were interested in the new British Education Act. and it might be used in the new education policy. Unfortunately. Great Britain could not now supply through the council —90 per cent of its resources came from the British Treasury—all the help that was reauired. It was hoped that New Zealand and Australia might take an interest in this field. In South Eastern Asia a great deal depended on Britain —and he included New Zealand and Australia —on how successfully the people there would be able to resist communism. In Malaya, said Sir Angus, he had noticed a disposition on the part of children to adopt European music. During the occupation by the Japanese their schooling had stopped, and their minds seemed to turn to music. Anv kind of instrument was used. He had heard a juvenile orchestra playing classical Western music well. There were unexampled opportunities for interesting these people in Western literature and arts ns well