PACIFIC RELATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21529, 29 December 1931, Page 8

PACIFIC RELATIONS

CONFERENCE AT SHANGHAI MR VON HAAST’S IMPRESSIONS ! (Pen United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, December 28. Mr H. F. Von Haast, of Wellington, returned this morning after more than three months’ absence at the conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations at Shanghai. During the conference Mr Von Haast was asked to outline the attitude of the New Government toward the continued restriction of aliens from the East. It was felt by the Chinese that New Zealand was not as friendly toward China as it could be, and that the poll-tax was an indignity to which the nation should not be subjected. Delegates were in sympathy with these sentiments, said Mr Von Haast, and agreed with the plea that the polltax should be removed. The whole question of racial miscegenation was handled by the conference, and several interesting examples of inter-marriage between Europeans and Chinese were produced, the result of which had proved eminently satisfactory. It was felt by some delegates that greater attention should be paid to the scientific investigation of this question, and arrangements were made to have further .discussions upon it. i “ It is thought that the old idea that half-castes absorb the'vices of both races and the virtues of one might found to be unsound,” Mr Von Haast said, “and members of the conference were agreed that the subject should be given a more scientific analysis.” One of the most interesting things mentioned by Mr Voh Haast was the attitude of the American delegates toward Maori renaissance in New Zealand, upon which Mr Von Haast was asked to speak. The Americans considered that the ve-emancipation of Maoris \yas merely a flash in the pan because the ultimate fate of all native races was to become absorbed by the white races with which they lived. This was the outlook which determined the policy of the United toward the natives of Hawaii. The impressions of troubled China as viewed by a foreign observer were given by Mr Von Haast, who said that the anti-Japanese feeling ran exceedingly high in Shanghai, but it appeared to him that the Japanese were determined to stay in Manchuria. To the New Zealander whose idea of- the Chinese race was formed by his association with laundrymen and market gardeners, it was an education to meet cultured, welleducated Chinese, most of whom had been educated at Harvard or English Universities. Mr Von Haast thought it would be a mistake for Britain to think of abandoning the Hankow concessions while Japan'still-had a concession there. The Chinese did not appear to appreciate the fact that Britain was willing to meet them half way, and mistook this spirit of conciliation for a display of weakness.'' A strong dictatorship was required in China to ensure first the'establishment of law and order and then stable government. “There never-was a time in history when China needed foreigners more than she does now,” Mr Von Haast continued. “Yet there never was a time when she was more antagonistic to them and anxious to get rid of them altogether.”