PACIFIC SPOTLIGHT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 146, 10 April 1942, Page 13

PACIFIC SPOTLIGHT

Topical Talks From Station 3YA —

HE last few months have, with disconcerting thoroughness, thrown the Pacific area under the spotlight of world affairs. Names unknown before have suddenly become of vital importance. Map after map pours from the daily press showing naval stations, oil bases, airfields, railways, strategic points that many of us barely knew existed. And if we did know where the British flag flew (or the Dutch flag or the Portuguese flag) did we know how and when it was planted there? Probably most of us just took that part of the world as we found it. _ Yet, if we accepted the Pacific era as stable we were wrong. Even before the present conflict few parts of the world had changed so quickly. A hundred years ago Japan was a mediaeval feudal island empire refusing any contaminating contact with the outer world. China was still the great celestial Empire although, just a hundred years ago, we forced open the gates of her trade and compelled her, to our shame, to accept opium. Russia had not yet spread to Pacific waters. Germany was still a loosely-knit confederation of disunited states. Because the greed of early exploiters destroyed the rubber of the Congo, rubber was produced in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. Because

Napoleon III.’s throne needed bolstering, the French planted their flag in Indo-China. Because the growing bourgeoisie class of Europe needed soap and candles, the traders scoured the islands for copra. Because each of the great European nations wanted its place in the sun, there began the headlong rivalry for colonies, gold mines, naval stations, airports. The new Winter Course talks from 3YA are designed to throw a spotlight on one place after another in the Pacifié, showing now the significance of the teeming millions and the wealth of raw materials in South Asia, now the rapid growth of industrialisation in Japan, now the entry and importance of the United States as a power in the Pacific. K. B. Cumberland and G. T. J. Wilson will open with a discussion on Wednesday, April 15, at 7.38 p.m. on the Pacific Area generally. C. G. F. Simpkin, Dr. G. Jobberns, Dr. H. N. Parton, and A. H. Clark, will also take part in the later discussions on South East Asia, agricultural and industrial Japan, Russia in the Pacific, and other Pacific topics. These talks should help listeners to understand the present conflict.