THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1907. THE COLONIAL CONFERENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8329, 10 January 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1907. THE COLONIAL CONFERENCE.

At the end of the present month Sir Joseph Ward will be leaving the colony for London, where the Colonial Conference meets in April. It is therefore desirable that any public discussion upon the subjects likely to come up for consideration at the great Imperial consultation should take place immediately. Needless to say there is no partisanship in the representation of New Zealand by its Premier, ' for the very happy and sufficient reason that on all national questions a genei*al unanimity of opinion exists here. Any minor differences of opinion are entirely non-partisan and are due to the laudable earnestness of colonists who have the same end in view, but do not wholly agree as to the exact path to be followed. The great bulk of our colonists recognise that the loyalty of New Zealand to the Empire is not merely due to sentimental feelings which might expire with the growth of a New Zealand born population, but is sustained by the very practical sense that the Empire offers us the fullest possible opportunity of national growth while securing for us the fullest possible measure of security and freedom. We feel ourselves to be, what our every interest makes us wish to be, an integral part of the British Empire; our colonial policy is, therefore, to do all that lies in our power to make the Empire as strong as possible while watching, with friendly eyes, to see that our local rights are not infringed nor our legitimate privileges needlessly curtailed. This we take to be the practically unanimmous attitude of the New Zealand people. Sir Jospeh Ward will therefore be able to speak at London, as his predecessor has spoken before him, without fear that his statements "will be captiously criticised or his tentative pledges set at nought. One

who speaks for a whole people must always speak cautiously, but our New Zealand delegate has the advantage of expressing the wishes and i determinations of a people whose Imperial and national policy has long been defined. A paper by Professor Motora, of Tokio, read before the Sociological Society' in London recently, raises one of the most interesting problems in contemporary social development. How has the influence of the West, which has permeated in almost every direction Japanese £ ideas and life, blended with Oriental traditions, and thought? As a rule, the shock and conflict of the East and West are a disintegrating rather than a constructive force. On one side of Japanese life the new influence had so composite a material to work upon that it did not produce the disturbance which might otherwise have been expected. Japanese civilisation has been profoundly modified in older days by, Confuscianism and also by Buddhism, though thfe fgreat religion of India, has, perhaps, remained something of an exotic. Possibly it was the better adapted in our own time to assimilating without injury an extEaneous element. In any case the "Bushido," or code of chivalry Revolved by the ancient Samurai of the two-headed sword —not very different in essence from the institutions which legend attributes to Lycurgus, and bearing some resemblance to the system established by Chaka, the Zulu kinghas proved itself equal to the task of absorbing Occidental innovations without losing its native vigour. But in commercial and economic development it is generally believed that Japan has suffered on the ethical side by contact with the West. European traders rank the Chinese above the natives of Japan in commercial integrity. On the whole, however} according to the professor, it seems | clear that the assimilation of Western ideas by the Japanese has been no superficial limitation, but a very | real and rapid step forward in civilisation. The lesson of the re-birth of Japan is that racial differences affect the capacity for civilisation far less than the biologists would have us believe.