Where possible, rice fields are inundated by an irrigation system during the first stages of growth, after which the water is allowed to drain out. This pictures comes from Malaya. (Courtesy United Kingdom Information Service, Wellington.) It was fitting that the Young Maori Leaders Conference devoted one evening to discussing the problems and progress of South East Asia. The lecture given that evening, which is worth preserving, is reprinted here. The author, Theo Roy, a tutor of Adult Education in Auckland, has spent the greater part of his life in Asia. SOUTH EAST ASIA TODAY by W. T. ROY In recent years newspapers in Australia and New Zealand have featured with increasing prominence, news items about South East Asia—and well they should, since this is no remote area, but literally the ‘near North’ of a predominantly white populated Australasia. Reference to a map will show that South East Asia is sandwiched between the land masses of India and China. It consists of a group of states on a peninsula of the mainland—Burma, Malaya, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia—and a string of islands containing two states—Indonesia and the Philippines. The population numbers at least 180 millions and consists of people of many races and cultures, but they have certain characteristics and problems in common. This article attempts to give an outline of those problems. Unlike India and China, South East Asia lies wholly within the tropics. The combination of heat and moisture that is the characteristic climate throughout the year produces luxuriant vegetable growth almost everywhere. Where the natural cover of tropical forest has been cleared by man for settlement, the staple cereal that thrives best in these conditions is rice. Dependence on rice has produced a characteristic pattern in South East Asian society. Rice cultivation is best carried out by small units, and close control must be maintained over irrigation and drainage at all stages of growth. Consequently, the typical basic social unit in South East Asia is the joint family, and the next larger unit is the village, which is more an administrative definition of an area with a unified system of irrigation control, than it is descriptive of a close human settlement. Since the majority of South East Asians live in