THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1913. THE WEST AND THE EAST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1913. THE WEST AND THE EAST.

The Asiatic immigration problem has this supreme virtue that ,it makes all internal differences between the Western peoples affected utterly insignificant by comparison. Briton and Boer can agree as wholeheartedly and cordially in their refusal to permit South Africa to be over-run by Hindoos as they do in their readiness to stand by each other against the Black Peril." In North America, Canadians and Americans are similarly united in supporting one another against every Asiatic invasion, whether it be Indian, Chinese or Japanese. This spontaneous unity of kindred nations in the face of a common racial danger is as old as the annals of mankind. When Europe was last threatened: by Asiatic inroads, even the quarrelsome nations of the Middle Ages drew together, for mutual support against a common enemy, and we do not doubt that if the arising of a militant Asia became recognised as a serious danger by European nations themselves there would be a prompt and complete abandonment of their present rivalries and antagonisms. It is inconceivable that Germans and British would destroy one another when Asia was battering at the gates of Europe and impossible that the Triple Alliance would measure its strength against the Triple Entente if a vast Asiatic coalition threatened, the very existence of Western civilisation. This fundamental homogeneity of Western civilisation must always bo borne in mind when we consider the Asiatic peril, which is beyond all question the most serious and' threatening problem that has forced itself upon Christendom since the Turks marched as far west as Vienna. Western civilisation is unique and unprecedented in history because it is composed of a number of independent, sovereign and rival states, distributed over several continents and ordinarily very jealous of each other. Britain and Germany, Scandinavia and France, the United States and the British dominions, stand on the same plane of a common civilisation arid must

necessarily and automatically combine if that civilisation is threatened to their consciousness. This instructive rallying to a common cause by diverse peoples of the same race and civilisation brought about the remarkable welcome accorded by New Zealand and Australia to the American fleet, when the United States marshalled its naval forces in tho Pacific as a warning to Japan. Japan was the treaty ally of the Empire; some authorities considered that by the AngloJapanese treaty it was possiblo that complications might enable, Japan to call upon Britain for assistance against the United States; and, yet, as war between America and Japan over an immigration question loomed among the possibilities, British colonial public opinion went unanimously to the American side. When tho American fleet came to Auckland it was greeted as the navy by which a kindred nation proposed to maintain a principle vital to Americans and British alike; and when American seamen marched armed through the streets of Australian cities they were acclaimed as kinsmen ready to fight in a common battle. When Europe awakens to the Asiatic problem, Europeans must feci to one another as New Zealandcrs and Australians feel on this question towards Americans. For, after all, our national organisations are dear to us and sacred to us only because they secure us in that freedom, progress and security which make Western civilisation possible. The sole cause of /the different attitude of Western Europe to the Asiatic problem is that the people of the United Kingdom, of Germany, of France and of Scandinavia, as the peoples of Eastern America and Eastern Canada, have not yet been directly affected by the Asiatic pressure. The Governments of Ottawa and of Washington are notoriously less decided in their Asiatic policies than the peoples of their western provinces and states. As a matter of fact, the United States is compelled to act by the irresistible demands of California and the group of western states which support it; and Canada is being similarly compelled by the insistence of British Columbia. New Zealand washed on every coast by Pacific seas' and Australia squally exposed to Asiatic intrusion are more unanimously though not more emphatically determined to permit no submergence of their European character. South Africa, peculiar among British dominions in having a coloured native population which vastly outnumbers its European inhabitants, is as unhesitatingly determined to protect these Europeans from any possibility of racial disaster. There remains only the United Kingdom, which as the ioniinating partner in the- British )rganisation and the sole dictator jver Imperial dependencies, is somewhat delicately placed as long is the Imperial Government hesitates to acknowledge publicly the fundamental principle that British copulations have a right to protect iheir civilisation by the exclusion )f any race or people who might sndanger their civilisation. If this principle were frankly asserted iherc would be no increase in the present tension between East and iVest and there might be a reduction of this tension. Indians imagine that by idle clamour thoy may break down the exclusion policies of British dominions and foolish British rulers in India evidently consider it their duty to humour this clamour; they also think to win free admission to Canada and . doubtless have an equally hopeful eye upon New Zealand and Australia. Japan, for her part, persistently tries to force admission for her people into the United States, and if successful would very speedily turn her attention to British dominions. The Chinese do not yet influence the councils of Europe for they arc not the subjects of a European. Power nor have thoy yet a navy; when China possesses the navy she is planning to acquire we shall not be left in any doubt as to her intentions. Obviously, it is necessary that the British and American governments should act in unison and that it should ho made quite clear and definite that European states are not open to Asiatic immigration in any form. This would at least curb the speech of British officials in India. To curb Asiatic hopes and ambitions we need to pour desirable immigrants into oui sparsely populated states and defj Asiatic invasion by filling oui waste spaces with sturdy settlers.