PACIFIC PROBLEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 2 March 1929, Page 7

PACIFIC PROBLEMS

SITUATION IN MANCHURIA. AUCKLAND, February 25. After an absence of two years Professor J. B. CondlifFe, formerly of Canterbury College, returns to New Zealand as research secretary of the International Institute of Pacific Relations. The primary object of his visit is to stimulate interest among the Australian and New Zealand branches of the institute in the annual conference of the organisation to lie held in Japan in November. Professor CondlifFe arrived in Auckland yesterday by the Aorangi. His headquarters are at Honolulu. 1 lie professor is one of the several secietaries of the institute, and his work brings him in contact with every country that borders on the Pacific. Since he has been away from the Dominion he has paid two visits to the United States and Canada, and spent six weeks in China and Japan. His main duty is to visit the various countries and arrange for research to he conducted at the different universities relative to the various problems to be discussed at the annual confeicnees. ■ Phus, at the November gathering at Chioto, data will he presented regarding the food supplies and populations of the Pacific, the present situation in China, with particular reference to the Manchuria trouble, problems of industrialisation, international trade, foreign investment, the government of Pacific dependencies and cultural relations of the Pacific people. The greatest of the problems to be discussed, explained Professor CondlifFe, was the situation in Manchuria, and it was fell that with the Japanese and Chinese delegates sitting at the same table as representatives from other countries, a better understanding would be come to in regard to the territory. Professor CondlifFe said that upwards of 200 delegates from Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Japan, China, Korea, Hawaii, Ihilinpines Australia, New Zealand, and Russia would attend the conference., while observers would be sent from the League of Nations, the International Labour Office, and the French group m cntlv formed in Paris. The British . m „,p attended the last conference as observers, and the Russian delegates will attend in the same capacity tin* vc-ir If it was found the latter could co-operate with the institute and the institute could co-operate with them, :> branch of the institute would be lorni.<l in Moscow. Yho institute, added the professor, was purely educational, and had un official status.' Delegates attended the conferences in a private capacity, and discussed problems of various kinds in order that they might come to undeistaiul them hotter. The institute stood for no propaganda, and passe, no resolutions, hut its influence was by no means negligible. He had no doubt that the results of the last conference, for instance, assisted greatly to teliew the tension that existed at that time between Great Britain and China. he Japanese group will act as hosts at the conference.