THE FUTURE OF THE PACIFIC.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 June 1918, Page 7

THE FUTURE OF THE PACIFIC.

CAFTAIN T. E. SEDDONS VIEWS. (Special Correspondent) Wellington, Juno IS. On the eve of his departure for the United States, -where, with a dozen or so British officers who had seen hard fighting at the front, he was .being sent at the request of the American Government to assist in propaganda work, Captain T. E. Seddon, writing to a friend in Wellington, made some interesting allusions to the Pacific question, from which it ia permissible to make one or two extracts. "The New Zealand people," he says, "should be earnestly and carefully considering the policy to be followed in the Pacific after the war. It concerns the whole Empire, but no other part quite so intimately a 9 it does New Zealand and Australia.. We cannot exipect to make an impression with our views when the peace terms are under discussion unless they are sufficiently focussed to be clearly defined in our own political visUm. One feels that the Allies with interests lying in the same direction should have -spheres of influence in the Pacific, and ia arriving at an equitable and a working scheme', the readjustment of the present position may be necessary. I know personally that responsible French opinion is all for working with the. greatest friendliness with the British and Americans in this matter, the earnest desire of all the Allies toeing to keep tfhe Germans out of this sphere of influence, an abject which should ensure a combination of the Allied nations capable of adjusting a somewhat delicate matter without unworthy jealousies. If exchanges can be made to the advantage of the Dominion, which would also be agreeable to the French, details could be readily arranged. The importance of the Panama Oanal, a gateway always open to the Dominion, places the Pacific question in a different perspective. As far as Samoa is concerned, French opinion concurs with the resolution of the Dominion to hold it at all costs against the enemies of peaceful development. The lesson of the war is plain. The very existence of the Dominions is wrapped up with the future government of the Pacific, a fact which, imposes upon the Empire the necessary preparations for the assurance pf peace—the possession of docks and coaling stations, seaI plane and submarine ibaaes. The day of | universal peace may come, when the nations will lay down tneir arms and live in amity with one another : but the time ia not yet, and while we are praying for the arrival of the millenium we must keep our powder dry. This may bo very sad and in a sense humiliating, font men just out of the hell of the Western front are under no delusions concerning the moral attitude of the men who are directing operations on the other side of No Man's Land. That, by the way. North of the Equator the Japanese are policing islands taken from the Germans, the Carolines, for instance, and the Australians have a practical and sentimental Interest in German New, Guinea at least as great as ours in Samoa. No doubt Dominion opinion, on the whole policy, will be sounded, and therefore the more sincerely the question is studied the more valuable and acceptable will be our counsel and the stronger and more convincing our advocacy of our claims."