JAPANESE GOODWILL

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19659, 20 August 1935, Page 9

JAPANESE GOODWILL

ARRIVAL OF MISSION. MESSAGE FOR NEW ZEALAND. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.} WELLINGTON, Monday. The Japanese goodwill mission, headed by Katsuji Debuchi, Ambass-dor-Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary arrived from Sydney,to-day. “ I bring a message of goodwill from the people of Japan to the people of New Zealand,” said Mr Debuchi, in an interview. “It is because we have the desire to maintain not only the cordial relations of Governments with each other, but the .relations of good neighbours, that I.am paying this cal) of friendship. “ The friendly relations between New Zealand and Japan are of long standing, and commerce between the two countries is daily growing greaterIt is necessary that this mptual co-op-eration be friendly and practical in order that the fraternity of the peoples of the Pacific may be as truly effective as the development of the new Pacific era demands.”

Accompanying Mr Debuchi, are Mr If. Toyoda, secretary, Mr Y. Shudo, economic adviser, Mr Ishide, private secretary, and Professor Russo, of the University of Commerce, Tokyo, who is now at Melbourne University, being attached to the mission as a personal adviser to Mr Debuchi. The members of the mission were welcomed by Sir Alfred Ransom, on ■behalf of the Government, Sir O’Grady Roche, representing the GovernorGeneral, Lord Galway, and heads of the naval and military forces. After the official welcome the party left for Government House, after which Mr Debuchi placed a wreath on the War Memorial. Future of Pacific.

Amplifying his reference to the development of the new Pacific era Mr Debuchi said It meant that in culture and material wellbeing, the people of the Pacific were destined to make immense 'progress, and just what form their future would take it was Impossible to say. In the North, Japan viewed herself as the nation diffusing Oriental culture, but it was impossible to ignore 'the Occidental influences which were at work. Whatever the future held it should be international, with prosperity and goodwill about the shores of the Pacific. In regard to trade New Zealand had and important role to play in supplying Japan with wool. MR KATSUJI DEBUOHI. DISTINGUISHED VISITOR. Mr Ivatsujl Debuchi, who is on a visit of goodwill to New Zealand, succeeded Mr Matsudaira as Japanese Ambassador at Washington in 1928. Like his predecessor, the new diplomat earned his promotion by previous valuable service to his country. He has a distinguished record in diplomacy. T,o the .'courtesy for which the Japanese is noted he adds the cosmopolitanism of the West while his business training has also been extensive. He first sought a diploma in business at the College of Commerce at Toldo, after which he went to study Western ideas, his first journey being as secretary to an economic mission which the Imperial Government sent to Russia. It was a long and laborious journey, as the -trans-Siberian railway had not then been completed, and much of their travelling had to he done on foot or on horseback. But he met many of the noted diplomats and politicians of Imperial Russia, including Count Witte, then Minister of Finance, and these men made a great impression on the young Japanese, so much so that he decided to give up a business career and study international affairs.

Series of Appointments.

He was first appointed Vice-Consul at Seoul. In 1907 Mr Debuchi went to Berlin as Third Secretary to the Embassy, and stayed In that country for a number of years, adding German to the several foreign tongues he could both speak and read. Seven years later be returned to the East, becoming First Secretary of the Japanese Legation at Peking, yyhere he succeeded his old friend Mr Matsudaira. His knowledge of Chinese affairs brought him in 1923 appointment as director of the Asiatic Bureau in Japan’s Department of Foreign Affairs, and in the following year he again succeeded Mr Matsudaira, this time as Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, after which he followed the same man into olllce at Washington in 1925, and remained there unlil recently. Mr and Mrs Debuchi have two children, a hoy aged 17 and a girl of 14.

The Japanese visitor Is fond of walking, and as a youth whs a fine swimmer and an adept at two-handed fencing. To-day lie reads economics, history and anything relating to international affairs while at the same line he has a liking for business statistics, which fils him to carry out I lie ample duties of the new diplomacy.