PACIFIC PROBLEMS

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVII, Issue 4459, 19 October 1933, Page 2

PACIFIC PROBLEMS

BRITAIN AND AMERICA. UNITY ESSENTIAL. Sydney, September 23. “The great problems of the Pacific have not yet been solved, and Australians, above all people, should be interested in these problems,” said Dr. Jesse R. Kellems, Ph.D., F.R.G.S., a noted United States author and traveller, in an address before the Travel League of New South Wales at a luncheon at Petty’s Hotel yestei'day. “One of the best pieces of news I have received for a long time is that the United States fleet is to be built up,” continued Dr. Kellems. “Has anyone any fear that it is being built against Australia? We are not building it against anyone, it is just expenditure on fire insurance. Is it not significant, however, that it is being concentrated in the Pacific? I am a disillusioned pacifist. We have been thinking that the millenium is to be brought in with the morning milk, but, in fact, it doesn’t come that way.” Describing the importance of fostering the bond between AngloSaxon countries, he said: “You of the Dominions are not bound by

agreement but by spiritual bonds, which are imperishable. Those same bonds bind the United States to the British Empire. Anglo-Saxons must quit thinking nationally and think racially. Men of the same language, of the same religion, of the same law, and the same conception of sportsmanship must continue to think and stand together, tied by the bonds of the ancient land from which we all sprang. lam not an alarmist, but the teeming population and the great push which is being made by the Eastern countries is a problem which warrants our deepest consideration.

Dr. Kellems, in describing the “Arch of Peace,” which stood on the border of Canada and the United States, between the State of Washington and the Province of British Columbia, said that it stood for the unity of Anglo-Saxondom. On one side of the arch were the words, “Brethren dwelling together in unity,” on the other side the words, “Children of the same mother.” The highway connecting the two countries passed through the arch. It stood as a monument of a hundred years of peace between the countries. He said that Canada was the finest interpreter of the British spirit to the people of the United States. The feeling of understanding between the United States and the British Empire was demonstrated by the fact that for 3000 miles the United States touched the Englishspeaking world physically. Along that border there was not one soldier, and on the Great Lakes there was not one warship. Instead of building those warships they had been building some wonderful things in your country, but United States citizens were proceeding every year with United States dollars to exchange for Canadian scenery. Speaking of the value of travel, he said that' ships and railways had opened up the wonderful riches of the world to men. They were more than mere wood and steel, and the business men who controlled them should not run them just as a moneymaking concern, as they were ministering to the things of the mind and the soul.

“Sydney is the most American city outside the United States,” said Dr. Kellems, “and you have many of the same problems as we have. Frankly, Australians are the worst advertisers in the world,” he added. “You have some wonderful things in your country but sometimes it takes a visitor from overseas to discover Australia. Why don’t you tell the world about it? You ought to send for some of our ‘hot-air merchants’ to put yourselves on the map.” Mr. J. K. Caldwell, the ConsulGeneral for the United States, who was a guest of the League, said that he most heartily endorsed all that Dr. Kellems had said .