JAPANESE MOVING.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13393, 17 September 1907, Page 3

JAPANESE MOVING.

MABCHiXG TUVi'AKUS AUSTRALIA.. "The Japanese lire colonising Java," Mr -\. K." Webb. an engineer we(l known m the East, remarked to n Sydney press representative <a-t week. " i ' l^v :,,e dnv " nig th.> !Sriii>.h out of the China Seas ; they are trying to g i «■ hrm footing m Uri'tish Columbia; and their ambition, a:5 ov,it .student, of K:.i-;tcru affairs know:;, is to be paramount in tli.- Pacilic—paramount. :;l. the expense of ally, friend, or foe.'' Mi- Webb was formerly in the employ of the Japanese Government, and later was in the Siamese service. Nine months ago he was in Java. Having .-spent over a generation in ilia East, he has acquired u. good knowledge of ilia Oriental language. ll<_- i.i going back—perhaps i« Siam, where they are building railways.'' • "The Japanese- are coming down to Java, - ' Mr Webb averted. "The Sultan of Banka (one of the Java Islands) has been to Japan to interview the Mikado. Why'/ It is common property; everyone knows. It was an impudent- tiling to do, but he attempted to get the Mikado to grant him protection against the Dutch. I was in Java, for two and a halfyears. All the Dutch steamers running from Hongkong take Japs to Java. Jardine';; boats are doing the same. Also, there is a line of Chinees steamers runrang between Samarang and Hongkong. Besidts the E. and A. Company bring some Japs to Timor, in the. Malays, ostensibly for the pearling luggers. They never "return from those luggers. They drift along the Java islands. "Tile Dutch authorities have bscn very much troubled about this matter for com; time—ever since the war. Even the Malay States they are getting in. In Singapore they are already prominent. They are gradually drifting towards Australia. In Hongkong to-day you will see the Japanese motor boats careering- abont the harbour. In the Pacific the Japanese marine is driving the .British out. The Scottish Oriental line has gone into the hands of the Germans —the Xorcl Deutschcr Lloyd. William Milburn'and Co. no longer exists in the East. The Gulf Steamship Company has gone out of the trade; go has the Abbotsford Company. Then Bowser and Orinson have disappeared. In short, two hundred British steamers have, been wiped out of the Eastern trade during the past few years. 'To-day the Japanese are building steamers for Siam, both gunboats and tor-pedo-destroyers. They are trying to get in there too! 'Three or four hundred years ago tliere was a Japanese colony in Bangkok, Siam. They are trying to build it up again, and to exclude the British and German officers from the Siamese service. As a matter of fact-, the tendency in the Siamese service is to supplement the German and British officers by appointing Japanese. Of course, there are points of resemblance in the Japanese and Siamese languagee. Besides some Japanese are Buddhists ; so are the Siamese. " Many Punjabs have told me—and there is no reason to discredit their story —that Japanese emissaries dressed an Buddhist monks are in India. They are trying to instil into the Oriental mind that Japan is the coming Power. It is the intention of the Japanese, no matter what Count Hayashi Gays, to secure supremacy in the East at all cost*-.

"This interests Australia. Java is three days' sail from Port Darwin; Timor is 24 hours."