IN DUTCH EAST INDIES

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 406, 13 April 1937, Page 5

IN DUTCH EAST INDIES

JAPAN’S PENETRATION SOURCE FOR RAW MATERIALS. Room in Papua for Emigrants Press Association —Copyright. Received 9.10 a.m. Tokio, April 12. The new Japanese Minister to the Netherlands, Mr. Kazue Kuwashima, who recently visited the Dutch Indies, stated in an interview to-day that he found the attitude toward Japan better than he expected. Mr. Kuwashima told the newspaper representative that there was plenty of room in Papua for Japanese emigrants, but Papua was wild and undeveloped, so the Japanese should first establish enterprises there, after which emigration could he carried on. Mr. Kuwashima added: "We must realise that the Dutch Indies are not only a source for raw materials, but also of industrial development. The trade outlook is good.” Mr. Kuwashima discussed the possibilities of leasing Dutch Papua with the Minister of Economics and other officials. POPULATION INCREASE. Japan Resolved to Lead. London, April 9. “No doubt Japan has made up her mind to use the difficult situation of the European States to secure hegemony of North China, and perhaps of the whole continent of Asia,” writes Gregory Bienstock in “The Struggle for the Pacific,” published by George Allen and Unwin. He points out that at the present rate of increase Australia will have 10,000,000 people at the most in 1950, while Japan proper, with an increase of 700,000 annually, which allows for a fall in the birth-rate, will have 80,000,000, and Greater Japan 124,000,000, and the United States 155,000,000. He describes .post-war Australia and New Zealand as typical examples of countries with a stable population, resembling industrialised Europe. Claim Won. “If Japan really extends her hegemony over China, she will undoubtedly be mistress of the Western Pacific,” Bienstock asserts. The Anglo-Saxon Powers, the Soviet, and doubtless even China will have to recognise Japan’s claim to predominance in the Far East, because Japan has already won it by economic, cultural, and political achievements. “What the other Powers interested in the Western Pacific cannot admit —not for reasons of prestige, but simply as a matter of their own security as a condition of their, existence as great Powers —is the hegemony of Japan over th,e Far East as a whole, and therefore over the Pacific. ' “That this is nothing in the way of an Inter-racial struggle between yellow and white is evident from the fact that amongst her opponents is China.”