DIP INTO THE FUTURE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 9 June 1928, Page 11

DIP INTO THE FUTURE

npHIAT the meeting 0 f East and West iu the Pacific) would lead to an amalgamation between Eastern and Western people and eventually result in a united world was a view expressed Oy Professor J. Macmillan Brown in the course of an address on “The Problems or the Pacific” given at Christchurch.

The professor said that the title of his address might suggest that he was going to make predictions as to the future. Predictions, however, were dangerous. Events, that at the time appeared conuparativeiy unimportant, often completely altered the trend of the world s affairs. For instance, if in the seventeenth century, Japan had not expelled the- Jesuits and shut up her country entirely to Europeans, she might have acquired islands in the IVLie, and , if this had happened, New Zealand to-day might not have been a British possession. The population of Japan at present was growing at a great rate. She wanted somewhere to send her surplus population. She sent them to America, South Ame-

rica and Australia, bue she had no territory of her own to which to send them. Japan was the closest analogy to Britain to bo found in the Pacific. She was an island nation, close to a great continent, and she naturally bred a race of sailors. There were two other islands in the Pacific similarly situated, New Zealand and Vancouver, He did not think that Ne.w Zealand would ever grow as powerful as Japan, but she would become a great nation. Email island nation to become really p .werful, she must have a great continent close at hand as a market. New Zealand was too far off her continent of Australia. AVAR. OVER /MANCHURIA. Japan, the professor continued, was easily organised, and, with her devotion to education, she was destined to take a huh place among the nations of the Pacific. Japan needed Manchuria and North China to supply her with loocl and raw materials essential to her industries. Japan would always claim that Manchuria was her own, but this claim was disputed by China, and Russia. China would claim Manchuria cn the ground that tens of thousands, of her people lived there. The Japanese had not taken kindly to living in Manchuria. Russia would claim

A UNITED WORLD

Manchuria because she still owned the principal railway of the country. He quite anticipated that, a good while on iu the present century, there would bo a triangular conflict between the three nations to decide which should possess Manchuria, and lie also was pretty certain that Japan would win. This oonilict was impossible at present because the treasuries of the three nations were depleted. THE GREATEST PROBLEM. The greatest problem of the Pacific, however, was that for the first time in history East and West were meeting face to face. What was to come of tins meeting Y Was there going to ho an amalgamation between Last and West.-' That was the problem of the future, and would not he solved until the Chinese trouble wa.s solved and the Manchurian question was settled. Then, he predicted that there would be a great commerce across the Pacific Ocean, and that this ocean would be the arena of the hybridising of two of the most progressive peoples that the world had ever seen and were now lor the first time lacing each other.

Delving further into the future, the speaker said that in his opinion the time would come when all the nations . f the world would be united. All the barriers that at present interfered with free intercourse between the nations would he removed. English, he predicted, would be the most spoken language It would he the Esperanto of tiie .iitiire. Eugenics would play a big part in the united world of the future. This would not be brought about by legislation, it would be a matter of religion. RELTG lON OF THE FUTURE.

What would he the religion of the future:-' To-day the religion of the \\ est was largely based on the supernatural. In the East religion was mainly a lo tv (ode of ethics. It would be a re.igion regulating the emotions, and morals of men, and leaving their minds I'iee from what was not understood. Reason would be the guiding influence in the religion of the per.eet- man. it would take tens of thousands of years to bring this about, but that was nothingVonsidering that the earth was two hundred million years old. Mankind was only at the beginning of its hist, ry, instead of at the end.