PACIFIC INTEREST

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25052, 16 November 1944, Page 7

PACIFIC INTEREST

TREND IN AMERICA

WEST COAST DEVELOPMENT "It will make all the difference in! the world to you whether we think of ourselves as having our back to the Pacific facing Europe, or as facing the Pacific and the Atlantic," said Mr Sydney Greenbie, chief of the United States Office of War Information in New Zealand, and special assistant to the American Minister, the Hon. K. S. Patton, in emphasising the important effect on the Pacific of the industrial development of the west coast of the United States, in an address to the Junior Chamber ot' Commerce yesterday. Mr Greenbie dealt mainly with the development of the western coast of the United States, where, he said. 12,000,000 people were now New Zealand's good neighbours. Over 2,000,000 had moved there in the last three years.

"We are no longer an Atlantic Power concerned only with the eastern watershed of the Rocky Mountains, but we are now 3000 miles nearer Australia and New Zealand, because of the shifting across to the Pacific coast of industries for war production," said Mr Greenbie. That was not only a pleasant prospect, but a hopeful one for New Zealand, as peoples with raised standards of living were always good customers of each other.

"My great hope is that we Englishspeaking peoples in the Pacific will find a solution to our problems in the same way as we have always found them on the Atlantic side." said Mr Greenbie.

In the last 30 years Japan had claimed that it was adopting the Monroe Doctrine of Asia, and in claiming the right for more room used the argument that the United States had

done the' same thing for the last 200j years. He compared Japan's aggression' in taking thickly-populated areas by force with America's acquisition of territory mainly by purchase. America had taken possession of an empty land where 300,000 nomad Indians lived an unstable life, while Spain had thought it not worth while and conquered the peoples of Mexico and X > eru. Was that any reason why Japan should slaughter and force back millions of Chinese from their resources and industries on the coast? Mr Greenbie compared the United States' tolerance of trade coinpetition in the Americas with Japan's action of forcing other countries out of trade with Manchuria.

RINGS STOLEN LABOURER SENT TO GAOL "This man has done about as mean a thing as he could possibly do," said Mr J. Morling, S.M., yesterday, when Mason Samuel Branch, labourer, aged 28 (ilr G. Skelton), pleaded guilty to two charges'of stealing diamond engagement rings of a total value of £G7. Detective-Sergeant Ap)in said accused was given the friendship and hospitality of tho two complainants who lived together. While staying at their house he had stolen one ring, and a fortnight later he returned and stole the other. He had 32 previous convictions. Counsel pleaded that accused should be allowed to go back to work for three months in order to make restitution of £33 to the jewellers to whom he had sold, the rings, which had since been recovered. At the end of that time, said counsel, sentence could be imposed. In spite of counsel's very thoughtful plea, said the magistrate, accused must be punished by immediate imprisonment. He was absolutely lacking in any moral sense, and the only way to give him that sense was to punish him severely. Accused was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, to be followed by one I vear's reformative detention.