PACIFIC RELATIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 5

PACIFIC RELATIONS.

PROFESSOR CONDLIFFE’S MISSION.

AUCKLAND, February 25.

After an absence of two years Professor J. B. Condliffe, formerly of Canter bury College, returns to New Zealand as research secretary of the International Institute of Pacific Relations. The primary object of his visit is to stimulate interest among the Australian and New Zealand brancnes of the institute in th? annual conference of the organisation t--be held in Japan in November. Pro fessor Condliffe arrived in Auckland yes terday by the Aorangi. Having his headquarters at Honolulu Professor Condliffe is one of several sec retaries of the institute, and his work brings him in contact with every country that borders on the Pacific. Since he has been away from the Dominion he has paid two visits to the United States and Canada, and spent six weeks in China and Japan. His main duty is to visit the various countries and arrange for research to be conducted at different universities relative to the various problems to be discussed at the annual conferences. Thus at the November gathering at Chioto data will be presented regard ing the food supplies and populations of the Pacific, the present situation in China, with particular reference to the Manchurian trouble and the problems of industrialisation, international trade, and foreign investment, the government of Pacific, dependencies, and the cultural re lations of the peoples of the Pacific. The greatest o'f the problems to be dis cussed, explained Professor Condliffe, was the situation in Manchuria, and it

was felt that with Japanese and Chinese delegates sitting at the same table as representatves from other countries a better understanding would be come to in regard to the territory. Professor Condliffe said that upwards of 200 delegates from Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Japan, China, Korea, Hawaii, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and Russia would attend the conference, while observers would be sent from the League of Nations, the International Labour Office, and the French group recently formed in Paris. The British group attended the last conference as observers, and the Russian delegates would attend in the same capacity this year. If it were found that the latter could co-operate with the institute, and that the institute could co-operate with them a branch of the institute would be formed in Moscow. The institute, added Professor Condliffe, was purely educatio al, and had no official status. Delegates attended the conferences in a private capacity, and discussed problems of various kinds in order that they might come to understand them better. The institute stood for no propaganda, and passed no resolutions, but its influence was by no means negligible. He had no doubt that the results of the last conference, for instance, had assisted greatly to relieve the tension that existed at that time between Great Britain and China. The Japanese group would act as hosts at the conference.