THE NEW PACIFIC.

Gisborne Times, Volume LII, Issue 5462, 24 April 1920, Page 6

THE NEW PACIFIC.

ITS PROBLEMS AND FUTURE. ADDRESS BY REV. W. A. SINCLAIR An interesting address was delivered hv the Rev. \V. A. Sinclair, at the Methodist Church last evening on ‘-The New Pacific —its Problems and Future/’ Mr E. S. Goldssrnith presided over a good attendance. The speaker said that the people of New Zealand owed a great deal to Foreign Missions. One hundred years ago New Zealand itself was a' foreign mission station, and missionaries were sent out from England to this country. Great credit was due to the fine men and women who'in those long years ago had come to New Zealand to cariv out the work of the evangal isatiou of the Maori. He believed the Pacific was to lie the ocean of the future. Britain to-day was the ruling nation of the world, and certainly exercised the greatest influence. The United States, with her vast wealth and tremendous resources, and the position she had gained in the financial world, chiefly as a result, of the war. became a very powerful nation and placed herself on such a footing as to challenge the world for supremacy. ff one had sufficient, prophetic vision to look across the Pacific, it might he that the' day was coming when the yellow and black races, with their teeming millions, might lie the ruling powers or the world. The Japanese were an ambitious people; they were also a strong military nation, adding daily to their military and naval strength, and there were some who regarded them as the Germans of the East. Australia had been called an empty continent with her sparse population of only five million people. That country had a White Australia policy, whilst practical] v the whole of the northern part of Australia was not a white man’s land, but the Chinese and Indians could live there without difficulty. China and Japan with their overwhelming populations were looking for'an outlet for their people, and had turned their eyes to the Northern Territory of Australia, and in this there were grave possibilities. ' After the horrors of the late war it was devoutly hoped that there would be no further turmoil. Ho thought, the salvation of the world would lay in its being Christianised throughout. Tile speaker was accorded a hearty vote of thanks.