JAPAN’S ANSWER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21088, 14 July 1938, Page 7

JAPAN’S ANSWER

READY TO EXPORT MILLIONS Reaction to Suggestion of Bishop Strong Opposition In New Zealand Aggressive Practice of Nippon United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received July 13, 8.30 p.m.) TOKIO, July 13. Questioned regarding Bishop Cherrington s suggestion that the Japanese should settle in New Zealand and Northern Australia, Baron Iguchi (Minister of the Interior), said: “It is very fair.” Asked if Japan were prepared to export 5.000.000 people, Baron Iguchi answered “Yes.”

“To suppose that a large country like this could possibly be defended with troops raised from our paltry population, two or three ships and a

score or two of aeroplanes is completely ridiculous, I think,” said the Bishop of Waikato, Rt. Rev. C. A. Cherrington, in the course of his charge to the Waikato synod. He suggested that perhaps the best means of national defence would be to offer such potential enemiies as Japan room for their surplus population within the Dominion

He understood the whole of the north of Australia was at the most but sparsely populated. It was said that it was an impossible country for white people. Why not offer it as a free gift to the Japanese? In 20 years they might make it a veritable garden of the Lord.

“We cannot use it. Then why keep it like a Gog in the manger? Look at

the waste in New Zealand—miles and miles of land that our scanty populations cannot make use of. Why not offer large tracts to the Japanese. We have all sorts of people of different blood living side by side with us now, and it is no disadvantage to us. If only five millions were admitted. New Zealand would not know itself for the wealth that would ensue.” Politically speaking, such a procedure might be regarded as wrong and chimerical, but the matter had to be considered from the Christian point of view or one’s Christian beliefs meant nothing. Bishop Criticised “It is almost incredible that a statement such as that attributed to Bishop Cherrington could have been made by an Englishman, or indeed by any person with a knowledge of history, even of modern history,” said the president of the New Zealand Five Million Club (the Hon. W. E. Barnard) when invited to comment on the suggestion o£ the Bishop of Waikato (the Rt. Rev. C. A. Cherrington >.

“The Bishop suggests that we should offer any waste land we have as ‘a gift to the Japanese. In twenty years they might make it a veritable garden of the Lord, ’ ” said Mr Barnard. “I would point out to the Bishop that so far the Japanese, where they have penetrated into foreign lands, have usually succeeded in creating a situation which is about as unlike ‘a ceritable garden of the Lord’ as we can imagine.