"HARMONY OF COLOUR"

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2715, 24 June 1925, Page 7

"HARMONY OF COLOUR"

Singapore Of Paramount Importance IN SECURING PACIFIC WATERWAYS. [By Electric Cable—Copyright.] [Aust. and N.Z. Cable Association.] (Received Tuesday 7 p.m) LONDON, June 23. Dr. Vaughan Cornish, F.R.G.S., in a paper on ‘‘Singapore and Naval Geography,” presented to the Royal Colonial Institute on Tuesday afteroon, points out it is in North America and Australia that national status is a practical question for Japan, and it is mainly in the monsoon region of Asia, including India, China and Japan, that the problem of achieving harmony of “colour" confronts the British Empire. After technically surveying the Empire’s strategical sea routes, • Dr. Cornish, says that one great remediable gap is at the passages to the Indian Ocean between the East Indian Islands, and therefore he claims Singapore is of paramount importance. •‘lt is,”'he says, “the British navy’s new eastern capital. It is the meeting place of the maritime ways from the north-west, north-east and southwest. It is also the haven of airways and a really necessary aerodrome between India and Australia. The word Singapore has come to have associations with the White Australia policy, which is described, not in a critical spirit, as an effort to prevent the congested Asiatic populations from colonising empty lands. Actually, it does not do so, because the Asiatic coolie has empty lands at his own country's doors. A naval base at Singapore will ensure Britain’s voice being heard in the settlement of affairs in China. The view that the project is provocative, ignores the essential fact that unless communications across the Indian Ocean are secured, a united British can only continue by the sufferance of foreign powers.”