CANADA AND THE EAST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20519, 21 March 1930, Page 15

CANADA AND THE EAST.

GROWTH OF POST-WAR TRADE

INTERCHANGE OF MINISTERS.

ADHERENCE TO EMPIRE.

[from our own correspondent.] VANCOUVER, Feb. 18. The remarkable growth of Canada's post-war trade with the Orient has gradually contributed to the shaping of a definite "mind" in Canada toward the Pacific. Larger and more influential delegations are being sent to the Pan-Pacific and Pacific Relations Conferences. A legation has been established at Tokio, and a Minister will be accredited to China when stable government has been assured there.

The first Minister appointed by Japan to Canada, Hon. Isemasa Tokugawa, is a direct descendant of the last Shogun, and Canadians appreciate tho honour conferred on tho Dominion by tho Japanese Government in sending a diplomat of such distinguished family and attainments. This exchange of Ministers marks a new epoch in Canada's relations to the Pacific and its problems. It is often said of Canada by political commentators in Great Britain and tho Dominions that, by the appointment of Ministers to Paris, Washington and Tokio, she is hastening toward nationhood and tho gradual cutting of the Imperial painter. It is entirely a matter of opinion.

Extended residence in Canada tends to convince one that a country, 3,000,000 of whose people are French-speaking, should have a diplomatic representative in France; that the appointment of a Minister to Washington was justified by the fact that two-thirds of the work of the British Ambassador there referred to Canada; that the fast-growing population of Japanese in. Canada, now 25,000, called for an exchange of Ministers between Ottawa and Tokio; that the presence of 40,000 Chinese in Canada, increasing on a very high birth-rate, has a logical corollary in a similar representation in tho Chinese capital. Thero is nothing apparent in the • acts and functions of these representatives that suggests aught but a consolidation of tho ties that have hitherto bound Canada to her sister Dominions and the Motherland. Canadian sentiment has most cordially approved these administrative changes rendered possible by the ''equal status" declaration of the Imperial Conference of 1926, in which Great Britain and the other Dominions heartily concurred. Canada is closely interested in developments in China. Her growing trade there will expand by great strides when the efforts of the Chinese leaders to maintain law and order throughout China have succeeded. There must be delays in the fruition of China's policy to change fundamentally, within a few years, the political, educational and judicial institutions of nearly one-quarter of the human race, a people yet without modern means of communication and transportation to overcome the great distances and natural barriers which divide China into differing sections.

Nevertheless, there is a growing faith, fully shared here, in the ultimate solution of the problem of tho government of China. The people of Canada will watch further developments with the greatest interest and sympathy, and with the earnest hopes that success may crown the efforts of China's leaders.