PALTRY MILLION.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 January 1922, Page 7

PALTRY MILLION.

TO HOLD NEW| ZEALAND. PLAIN WARNING FROM EAST. “If you people of New Zealand only realised what it meant you would remember what Lord Northcliffe told you about Japan. People down here don’t seem to have any conception of the strides that Japan has made during the past five years alone.” This was the warning uttered to an Auckland Star reporter by a widely travelled Britisher who lives in the East, and has made a deep study of Eastern problems. He is anything but a scaremonger, and nothing is further from his desire than to stir up strife, but he realises that we must look matters squarely in the face. “You have in New Zealand the richest country in the world, and it is simply suicidal to continue in your present policy of keeping it empty.” Speaking of Japan, he said that country little more than sixty years ago was very much in the same state as that in which the early colonists found the Maoris when settlement started in New Zealand. The Americans and British who landed in Japan at the time of which he was talking forced a trade treaty on the (Japanese, who were very loath to enter into such an agreement, but their barons —damios, as they were then called—saw that it was the only policy to pursue. Immediately after that treaty was entered into Japan began sending her emissaries—the best men she could find —to all the leading countries of the world with instructions to find out all about those countries and report back to Tokyo. That information was carefully sifted and tile best of each country was picked out as the model for the new Japan. If anything did not suit the country or the people it was carefully omitted. WHAT MADE JAPAN. The religion of the Japanese is Shintoism, and to a certain extent ißudhism, and to-day an attempt is being made to supplant that Buddhism with Shintoism, the first tenet of the last mentioned being that the laws of the country must be obeyed. Up to five years ago there were only an upper class and a lower class in Japan, wi.li practically no middle class. The consequence was that the ufjper classes made the laws and the lower classes obeyed them implicitly and without question. “That is how it has come about,” said New Zealand’s well-wisher, “that Japan’s navy is modelled on the British navy; her army on that of Germany; and her educational system mainly on that of Germany. These are the three principal departments of government that have made the country what it is to-day. Another thing is that Japan has had the faculty of noting the disjutes and weaknesses of the white na;ions and getting the greatest advantage possible out of the circumstances which arise as a result. At the crucial moment Japan made war on China and at the crucial moment she made war on Russia. The result is that from being a mere nobody among the nations Japan is to-day one of the Great Powers, on an absolute equality with those Powers. From her geographical position she is the leading Power in the East —the Power that must be reckoned with. A VITAL QUESTION. “The immigration laws of America, Canada and Australasia are such that it prevents the Japanese spreading in the countries named. Japan’s population is increasing by ’<1.000,000 every ten years, and a child can see that such a country must seek outlets for its surplus people. Japan itself is crowded; she is a small country with a population of 70,000,000. What is she going to do with her surplus people? This question is vital, and must vitally affect New Zealand and Australia.

“You must never forget that the distance from Japan to Australasia is only half that between Australasia and the Old Country. You must never lose sight of that point, and if trouble should ever unfortunately arise you could soon have on your coasts a hostile fleet, against which it is very problematical whether you could do anything. And there won’t be any 'notice given. It will be remembered that Japan sank part of the Russian fleet and bottled up Vladivostok before ever she declared war against Russia, and it would be the same thing over again if trouble came to-morrow.

“New Zealand must extend. She must not listen to those who say there is no more room; she must make room. She must take a lesson from America, which t'o-day had a population rising 110,000,000 against the 0,000,000 or 7,000,000 of Canada. New Zealand must attract more population. It is said the Labor party won’t allow it, but if there is trouble to-morrow and Japan be victorious, then good-bye to the Labor party and its aims.” LESSON WELL LEARNED. Incidentally the Star’s informant said there was hardly a merchant steamer that sailed under the Japanese flag that couldn’t be turned into a transport. Japan was a country of wood, and stored at convenient ports was the necessary timber to enable each steamer to be turned into a transport. “And,” he said, “you must remember that the people in Japan are like flies, and, moreover, they have 11,000,000 trained men. The military spirit is remarkable. I remember once seeing what I thought was a regiment of soldiers on manoeuvres, but I was told (and saw for myself when I got closer) that it was simply a huge crowd of schoolboys ‘playing at being soldiers.’ Each lad had a rifle on one shoulder, a shovel on the other, and full pack up, and for a month they had been ‘digging themselves in,’ just as the Allies and the Germans were doing at that moment in Europe. No, you have no conception how well Japan has learned the military lesson.” Asked what he thought of the immediate future, the Star’s informant said it was quite impossible to say. The most important factor, in his opinion, was that at present Japan was not a steel-producing country. That was why she was so anxious to get control of the iron-ore country in North China. However, no matter what the future held, New Zealand and Australia’s duty was clear. They must fill up their empty spaces or be prepared to have to dispute their homes with some alien race.