"INEVITABLE"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 175, 27 July 1942, Page 5

"INEVITABLE"

NEW ORDER IN EAST

THE FUTURE OF INDIA

(0.C.) SYDNEY, July 22 Sir Bertram Stevens, former Australian representative on the Eastern Group Supply Council at New Delhi, said that, even if Japan were defeated, a "new order" in Asia was inevitable. In the days to come the West would have to regard the East in terms of equality. Sir Bertram Stevens, who was speaking at the Lyceum Hall, said that to-day the East was as dynamic as the West. For a long time the East had appeared unchanging, but underneath the tranquil surface of Eastern life forces had accumulated steadily which now had become dangerously explosive. "I do not think that the Japanese advance is the final expression of those explosive forces," he continued. "The defeat of Japan is essential if the East is to work in harmony and friendship with the rest of the world, but the defeat of Japan will not return the East to its old quiescent, subservient state. "A new order already faces us in the East. In the days ahead we have to think of our friends as being among the Chinese, Indians, Malays and Javanese, and we must regard them as friends of equal status —just as to-day we think of our foes, the Japanese and their Allies, as being foes of equal fighting calibre, if not sometimes and in some ways superior. "The days of colonial war in which the white man's Maxim-gun put the ignorant pagan to flight are over. The days of making profits from teaching Asiatics the 'wonders' of Western civilisation also are over. European prestige in the East in the form it existed (and the form in which many people believe it should continue) has been greatly shattered. "Now we are going to be judged not on the basis that we have white skins and. therefore, are a race apart, but simply on a basis of human qualities.

Sir Bertram Stevens said that the future of India was full of uncertainty, and the signs - , of the times which came to hand from day to day should not be ignored. Militarily, however, India could not break from Britain. Two-thirds of the Indian war budget was met by the British Exchequer, and every Indian battalion was led by an English officer. In addition, thousands and thousands of Indians were fighting loyally for Britain.

"While most recent events in India provide evidence of a widening breach between many political leaders and the British Administration, it is well to remember that India is definitely anti-Japanese and most friendly to China. India knows well that a Japanese victory would mean the end of many plans for Indian freedom," he declared.