The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1928. THE PERIL OF THE PACIFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 224, 21 September 1928, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1928. THE PERIL OF THE PACIFIC.

For the cause that tacks assistance, For the wrong that. needs resistance, For the future in the distance, - And the good that we can do.

Though M. Sarraut is not of necessity to be accepted as a first-class authoi-ity on the problems of the Far East, yet as French Minister of the Interior and a statesman of very considerable public experience his views deserve serious consideration, and his opinions as to the future of the Pacific will strike most people as pessimistic in the extreme. For M. Sarraut regards a great war in the Far East as inevitable sooner or later, and the reasons that he advances would justify the further assumption that such a conflict would of necessity extend to the West, and would involve all the great nations in a world-wide struggle for trade and power. From the point of view that M. Sarraut has adopted, China is regarded as the real centre of international rivalries and antagonisms in. the Far East. Britain and Russia, France, the United States and Japan, it is assumed, are all turning toward China, gazing with greedy eyes on "its vast markets, inexhaustible mineral deposits, hundreds of thousands of acres of oil lakes, and an endless supply of labour." But the Powers contiguous to China have the immense advantage of being "on the spot," and Russia and Japan are therefore likely to outstrip their Western competitors in the contest for commercial supremacy there. M. Sarraut therefore believes that Japan and Russia — having long since forgotten the bitter struggle of 1904-5 —will come to an understanding with each other, and probably with China, which could not hope to resist them, to exploit its natural and commercial wealth to the virtual exclusion of their Western rivals. And if such a commercial "entente" is possible between China, Japan and Russia, it requires no great stretch of imagination to conceive these three Powers as combining to hold their own against their Western rivals and preparing to assert their rights and privileges if necessary by force of arms. It should be obvious to our readers that M. Sarraut's gloomy predictions are based on a series of assumptions to all of which exception can be taken. Though it could fairly be said a quarter of a century ago that the Powers looked upon China as legitimate spoil, and that they were prepared to fight each for his own share, the situation has change<j vastly since then. Quite apart fi-om the pacific and philanthropic intentions now expressed by Britain and most of her rivals, we may well doubt if it would be to their interest to quarrel over China now. Further, though Russia is more an Oriental than a Western State, no friendly understanding seems possible between the Bolsheviks, on the one hand, and Imperialist Japan and Nationalist China on the other. We admit M. Sarraut's contention that, unless vigorous efforts are made to adjust differences in a commercial and political sense between East and West, the world may some day find itself again on the verge of a great war. But in our opinion such a catastrophe is most likely to arise out of the demands already put forward by the Orientals for the right to migrate and penetrate into white communities. We may also observe that if China ever does agree, as M. Sarraut assumes, to allow Japan "a Continental outlet for her population," this would relieve America and the British Empire of all anxiety about Oriental migration, and thus the worst danger of a world-wide conflict between East and West would be averted for an indefinite time to come.