"QUITE DECENT CHAPS"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 62, 6 December 1937, Page 9

"QUITE DECENT CHAPS"

Canton Resident's Opinion of Chineso and Japanese "The ordinary everyday Chinese is. aite a decent chap. So is the ordinary Japanese. But that does not apply to the militaristic lofc. Put either of thom Lnto a uniform and his head will swell fcill he thinks he'e a lord of creation," said Mr R. T. Orowe, of Canton, Chiua, in an interview in Napier on Saturday. Mr Crowe, who is on leave from a shoru pqsition with Jardine and Matheson, shipowners and merehants, operating i" the East, spent the week-end in Napier. He deelined to make any comment on the Sino-Japanese trouble, except to say that the situation had ehanged a lot sinee he left China, at whieh timo there had not been a great deal of serious trouble in Canton. He did statc, owever, that the Japanese had sopie cause for feeliug against the Chinese, who had operated a tarde boyqqtt against them for about 16 years. Asked if he thought there were any eerious groundsf qr the fear so often expressed, that the Japanese might want to annex New Zealand, he said he was not in a position to make any anthoritative commept, but, from whai

ixo know oi tno Jnpnnoso ciiixmctor^ their people' woulcl never be induced to migrate any distance, np inatter how acute the over-population of their own eountry might become. The Japanese were a home-loving people in the main, and their rcluctanee to migrate was elearly shown in Manchuria where, though they were constantly building railways and controlled induatry, there were very few Japanese colonists. Japan's great needs at the present timo were oil and iron ore, neither of whieh conld be found in any quantity in New Zealand, The latter, however, was to be had in China. China, Mr Crowe thinks, is virtu' ally nnconquerable, on aecount of the tremendous population and the verv vastness of the interior. The most any foreign power could hope to do would be to gain control of the eoastal area and create a trade monopoly, cutting out all foreign control, The Chinese, however, were very keen thafc Brita,in, at any rate, should retain interests in the eountry, because it gave them somewhere to run to when defeated. Talcing them all through the Chineee civil anthorities were very easy to get on with, though foreigners had to be careful when the soldieTa were about, as they were a very ill-behaved lof, and no respeoters. of persons. However, the Chinese, as a general rule, wero very easy to govern. So far as the peasant classes of the interior were con-' cerned, they did not care much who was in control. All they wanted was to be left alone, and Governmental matters, to the majority of these people "no belong" — were not, in faet, re- . garded as "their pigeon. " The masses of the people were too busy trying to make a meagre living to have time to consider .such ^ueations.