THE YELLOW PERIL.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1931, Page 3

THE YELLOW PERIL.

' (To the Editor.) ,

Sir, —Some 200 years ago an Irish monk: made a prophecy that the yellow man would one day rule the world. No doubt he was considered a crank in those days, and even to-day 75 per cent, of Britishers would consider him one and they would say that the fulfilment of his prediction was as far off to-day as when he made it. But is it? Anyone who will take five minutes to study the matter will have to come to the conclusion that if the white masters of the world continue as they are now doing the prophecy is liable to be fulfilled inside 25 years, certainly not more than 50 years. Fifty years ago Japan was treated with something less than contempt by the rest of the -world. Today she is one of the three leading naval Powers. That in itself is a startling fact. Japan is a country somewhere about the size of New Zealand, with a huge and ever-growing population, for whom she simply must find an outlet. We all know that England let Japan down ’badly after the last var. For her help to the Allies Japan, rightly expected to receive sufficient of the captured German colonies to give her relief from over-population for at least 100 years. Instead, what did she get? Only a few more or less desolate islands north of the equator, i At heart Japan must have taken this blow very bitterly, and it must have made her see the fallacy of trusting to the white man’s sense of honour. It also made her realise that the white man has very little sense of honour when it conies' to L.S.D. She will see to it that if she ever again gives help to white nations in distress Jiejwill have her reward written in black and, white beforehand. The white man’s motto, “Business is business,” will no doubt be the yellow man’s motto also in the future. One wonders what would have happened if during the war when Russia was down and out and before America came in Germany had offered Japan half the British colonies if she would turn and stab England in the back. But there, it could not have happened because Japan’s moral code (even if. they are pagans) would not allow her to do such a thing. She trusted her life-long friend, England, who knew her over-populated plight, to do the right thing by her.; Unfortunately perhaps for the future white generations England failed to do the right thing. Matters would have probably come to a head before this if some of the South American Republics had not opened their doors wide to Japanese immigration. But it is reported that these Republics have now just about filled up with all the Japanese they can possibly absorb. Therefore Japan’s home population will immediately start to bank up, again. It would be disastrous for Japan to go to war in the immediate future with anyone of the Western Powers. The grouping of the latter would be sure to be against her, and the final peace terms would certainly aim at preventing her again being a danger to the white man for at least a couple of hundred years. No, she has too much at stake to risk everything by hasty action. Her only hope of ever gaining an outlet for her surplus population is by playing a waiting game and keeping her navy in a high state of efficiency. When the highly civilised western world is again tearing each other limb from limb she cay then with safety get in for her place in the sun. We will now leave the Japanese point of view and study things from the white man’s, particularly the Australian’s. First take the desperate plight England is in to-day. Her unemployed are bleeding her to death, and all the rest of the world are watching her dying convulsions and watching their chance to get in for their cut of her estate. Anyone who has studied the matter at all must realise that if England is forced into another war within the next ten years the mighty British Empire will crack up like Napier and Hastings did the other day. So sure are the other Powers that England is done that she probably would not have a friend unless America went with her, which is unlikely. England is like the very wealthy man who has fallen on evil times and whose so-called friends desert him. Her only hope is to get time to.pull herself together, and to

do this she absolutely; must get rid of her millions of unemployed either by ■ finding them woi;k or emigration. But where is she going to send them? By the irony 'of fate she is in practically the same position as Japan. i Canada, Australia,' New Zealand have all closed down on immigration, and England cannot force them to take them. Undoubtedly it would now be better for England if she had never given the their present constitutions. She could then have forced them to take more population. She certainly would have run the risk of losing them, but even so it would have been worth the risk. Anyway an Australian Republic composed of mostly British stock would be of greater service to England than the present Commonwealth of Australia. An Australian Republic would have to get down to brass tacks and make a move to protect herself instead of relying on the British Navy, and the first essential for the young republic’s protection would be a population of at least fifty millions. As it is, Australia is burning the candle at both ends. She has a white Australian policy, which is a very high ideal, but she,: is relying on an outside Power to preserve it for her and at; the Same time she refuses to help her protector in the latter’s hour of need. Evidently Australia’s real ideal is an anti-every colour policy. I was in Brisbane a few years ago when , an English immigrant ship 'arrived, and it was hardly safe for the passengers to land so bitter was the feeling against all new arrivals. Unless Australia is very lucky she will some day pay bitterly for' her dog in tlie manger sins. There is no use Australia saying she cannot find work for all her present population. About half of the latter are in the cities, which leaves a miserable three and a-half millions to cover a continent, and the most prolific continent in the world at that —a continent which only needs foresight, irrigation and the white Australian policy to make it in a few hundred years the wonder of the world. Yeh undoubtedly if the British Empire gees on the way it is going at present it will be men of another colour who will polish this rough diamond into a beautiful jewel. The money which has been spent on the Sydney bridge and other places of the’same kind would be a thousand times better employed-on irrigation and immigration, and go a long way to disprove the Irish monk’s ‘prophecy that the yellow • man would one day rule the world. New Zealand as well -as Australia is vitally interested. A dictator with half the backbone of Mussolini would have New Zealand carrying at least five million people in ten years’ time, and with no man out of work. Our present Government is very evidently a one-man Government, which is all to the good, and if Mr. Forbes will only put his teeth together 'and his ears back and lash out in the right direction he may have young New Zealanders worshipping at his shrine in a thousand years’ .time. He may even have New Zealand in a position in 20 years to be in for its cut of that unfortunate : continent Australia. Who knows? Sydney might yet be the capital of the future mighty New Zealand Empire. —I am, etc., W.C. HICKEY. Oaonui, February 17, 1931.