THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, MAY 27, 1907. THE MASTERY OF THE PACIFIC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8449, 27 May 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, MAY 27, 1907. THE MASTERY OF THE PACIFIC.

America, which at one time seemed to be making an earnest bid for commercial supremacy in the Pacific, is yielding place to the Japanese. This is not because Congress refuses to vote sufficiently large shipping subsidies, but rather in consequence of the unequal conditions under which Americans and Japanese meet in the struggle. The Japanese have proved their ability to operate merchant vessels as efficiently as they handle warships, says the Washington Post. They are aided by a paternal government in more ways than a direct subsidy, and they enjoy an enormous advantage in the low standard of wages. From the captain down, the Japanese vessels are operated at less expense than American' vessels. The commissary is less expensive, there are no seamen's unions to precipitate strikes and exact high wages, and the hours of labour are fixed only by the necessities of the day. The. Pacific mail is able to compete with Japanese lines only by employing Chinese crews and by giving Japanese lines a share of the business. The subsidy proposed to be given in the Bill recently pending in Congress would not have been accepted by the Pacific Mail, as it would have made necessary the employment of Americans in the crews, thereby increasing expenses to a point where competition with Japanese lines would have been impossible. The dream of a vast Oriental commerce, carried in American vessels, culminating in domination of the Pacific by the United States, is a magnificent conception, but it will hardly materialise so long as the Japanese display the ambition and the ability to capture trade which heretofore has belonged to Americans. The threatened withdrawal of the James J. Hill Company from the business is sufficient evidence of the terrific effect of Japanese competition.

For fifteen years relations have been strained between France and Siam. . At last the old conflict has ended, a ( mutually satisfactory treaty was recently signed at Bangkok, and the 1 King of Siam is to be the guest of the , Republic. This settlement is described by the Paris correspondent of ; the London Times as one of the happy results of the entente cordiale. Siam was quick to perceive the great change that had taken place in international relations. She proposed in 1905 the resumption of negotiations in order to settle definitely all outstanding questions. The result of the negotiations is that France finds her colonial domian increased by some 20,000 square kilometres of rich territory, the Cambodian provinces of Battenbang, Siem-reap, and Sesufon, which the treaty of 1904 had left to Siam. There are the famous ruins of Angkor and 200,000 hard-wurking peasants who are now French subjects. What does Siam receive in exchange? The port of Krat, near Chentabun, the region of Dansai, ,in the district of Laos, entirely peopled by Siamese, and four ports on the Mekong. The Siamese law cuurts are given by the convention wider jurisdiction over certain populations hitherto dependent on France, but at the same time French subjects ■ are granted the right of acquiring property in Siam. The significance is considerable, not only because it opens up new fields of expansion for French Indo-China, but because, coinciding as it does with the AngloRussian delimitation of the zones of > influence in Central Asia, it is one fresh guarantee in case of a European war of the maintenance of peace in the Far East, and a .very important - one.