DELICATE SITUATION

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 211, 19 August 1933, Page 9

DELICATE SITUATION

AUSTRALIA AND JAPAN DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATION URGED TO OVERCOME DISCORD SYDNEY, Aug. 7. The possibility of a delicate situation arising between Australia and Japan showed the necessity of the most careful attention in the promotion of harmonious relations between these two countries, said Dr. I. Clunies Ross, in an address last night in the Kinjf’s Hall. He said Australia was quite unrepresented in Japan, and there was no one to explain and justify our policy to the Japanese people. It was gratifying to know that the Federal Government was taking steps to rectify this lack. Unconquered through the ages, with over 2000 years of history, blending imperceptibly with mythology, he said, the Japanese to-day were a poor, but proud, sensitive, and disciplined people, whose future importance as a world force could not yet be gauged.

While the relations of Australia and Japan should be complementary, the possibility of discord between them were such as to cause apprehension, said Dr Ross. The White Australia policy, which embodied exclusion and had as its natural corollary the erection of prohibitive tariff barriers, was con sidered by the Australian people to permit of no argument, but it wa.s idle to expect its implications to be accepted by a proud and powerful people, against which it might bo considered to be largely directed. The Japanese propagandist had not as yet availed himself of this weapon, but did he care to do so the opinion of a struggling and over-crowded people could be readilyinflamed by the picture of a fertile con tinent with a fringe of settlement round its southern shores. On tho other hand. Australian opinion was always susceptible to appeals to race prejudice and threats of competition by “coolie” labour.

The population question was the most pressing of all that Japan had to face, with the average agricultural holding reduced to not more than half an acre in area, and an nnnual population increase of 800,000 to 900,000. It was useless to say that this was of no concern to Australia, since if no peaceful solution of this problem were found, a force would be generated which neither international agreements, public opinion, nor armed might could restrain. CONFLICTING INTERESTS. AT AUSTRALIA’S DOOR SYDNEY, August 12. The menace of the Pacific to Australia and the necessity for a policy of defence and an active public conscience towards its potentialities. were emphasised at the A.G.L. Popular Science Club gathering at the Australian Hall last night by tho Editor of the “Herald” (Mr C. Brunsdon Fletcher) and Mr Hughes, M.P. Mr Fletcher traced, in ten-year steps, the ladder of Pacific history, commencing from 1854, when American influence induced Japan to open the door to foreign trade and nationals, to 1914 and the Great War. In that period, he said, three great nations, Germany, Russia, and China, had. had their grips on the Pacific removed. Japan all the time had increased her hold, and by her mandate over the Marshall and Caroline groups was now only 4500 miles from either Canada or Australia. She was entrenched behind a network of islands, and in her home waters was unassailable. We could look for trouble in the Pacific, for Germany was determined to regain her lost possessions. Japan was equally determined to hold

what she had. Great Britain had been disarming while other nations had conserved or increased their arms, Australia’s defence system was negligible, and as her part in the Empire was of importance to all other parts, it was essential that she do everything to defend herself. “But,” added Mr Fletcher, “it is not necessary to assume that Japan is a potential enemy. She is anxious to do her part in the Pacific as a Great Power, but she naturally thinks in terms of her own security for to-day and her population for to-morrbw.” Mr Hughes, M.P., in a preliminary address, spoke of tho great advantages which accrued to Australia and the Empire from the renewal in 1911 for 10 years of the Anglo-Japanese treaty. That renewal, he said, made victory possible for the Allies. Without it, Britain would have had to divert portion of her naval strength to the

Pacific, even had Japan remained neutral. Had she been hostile, a situation would have been created at which tho imagination faltered. Australian trade would have been paralysed, our great cities would have been in danger, and not one soldier would have beou able to leave these shores. To-day we were in an entirely different position. Just as that one far-sighted act in 1911 had saved tho Empire aud civilisation, so our lack of action and policy to-day might lead in the very near future to disaster.