RACIAL AMENITIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19405, 13 August 1926, Page 12

RACIAL AMENITIES.

THE EAST AND THE WEST, THE CONVERGING VIEWPOINTS. In an address to University students in Melbourne recently the general secretary of tho Institute of Pacific Relations, Mr. J. Merle Davis; urged the necessity of a recognition of the converging viewpoints of Eastern ;rod Western races. Australian and Japanese and Canadians wore not -divided into watertight compartments, he said, but could be : united by humane sympathy of outlook. " In China," -said Mr. Davis, " Western commercial agents are regarded somewhat in the light o£ a hungry force, trying to create an appetite for commodities which China does not want. The' West has to approach the East in a different attitude >of imagination and sympathy. Race prejudice that exists between the two groups is one of the main, problems we have' to face. Yet how difficult it is to appreciate the viewpoint- of a representative, of a community ; that treats its women as chattels—treats human life as cheap, and human labour as of insignificant value. Can we honour such people innately ? : " That is one of the almost insoluble problems we are faced wich. Another is the la!nd problem. How far is a community like Australia justified 'in its White Australia policy, arid what right has-America to exclude the Japanese ? America seems to have solved her /colour problem by practically exterminating one coloured race and making slaves of the other. These danger-points are full of dynamite. r ' "I am glad that there is a group of people in Australia, looking to other,countries, not in a spirit of rivalry, but. in a sense of real sympathetic'interest," said Mr. Cavies, in conclusion. "Hope of world peace rests not. alone in racial solidarity, but in a human, intelligent recognition pf other folks' points of View."