"Tue Paciric: A Founcast."—By Lieut, PT. Etherton, late. Int.
Consul" "Genera Chinese judge of the "British Supreme Court in China and H, Hessel Titian," London: "Ernest Benn, Fleet Sirget' Price, 125, 6d. net.
This is a book that is very we written by men who have study the subject of which they write and are able to give very. competent Judgements on the many thorny Problems raised in the course of their discussion, To the writers says, the future looks dark with menace. They say "The Pacific is the next centre of world struggle. On the coasts of the Pacific militant west meets awakening cast and. their meeting augurs a complex battle for dominance. Great Britain, the United States, China, Japan' and Russia all have vital interests and those interests clash. The tragic implications of this possibility constitute a red and white as well asa yellow peril. The calamity can be obviated only if the civilized citizenry of the world is forewarn To show how vital the Pacific is to us are told that "the seas around Singapore carry every year £1,000,- 000,000 worth of cargo to Great Britain." These: seas are of vital interests to others as well as to ourselves. Japan, lives" by the Paci ocean as truly as do the fish that move America, Russia, China all requi 'a free passage way for their merchandise across this great ocean sand without this they cannot The authors show that Australi with its great undeveloped spaces is a continued temptation to races in the crowded portions of the cast, "Australia with eleven, times as large a territory as the Japanese empire has only one fifteenth of Japan's population."
The problem facing the statesmen of Japan is how to provide for their surplus people. Already she must import food and every year 800,000 births add to her numbers. Is it any wonder that she looks longingly at the great qrply continent at her doors. A Japanese writer says "It great pity that artificial laws of other nations are standing between Japan and her natural expansion abroad. The question is, which is the stronger—the natural law or man made legislation, in the long run."
After touring Australia in 191 the Chinese Consul declared saw more trees than men. The Almighty gave Australia to the Australians and they could not use it, so he gave it to the English. If the English do not use it He will, doubtless, take it away from them." And "Sir Leo Chiozza Money in "The Peril of the White,"
"At the present rate of increase, by 1950 the population of Australia will be 17,009,000 and at the same period Japan wil contain about 105,000,000. Ths s.tua not likely to continue.
Australis will then be sivxed Ly whites to a much geecter extent, of it will have been peopled by the yellow race." These speculations Hive us furiously to think and provide a serious problem for the leaders of the Southern continent.
The authors of this book have presented their case with great ability and yet, if a reviewer, who Knows much less of the matter than they do, be allowed an opinion, it is that by dwelling, as they the later chapters of the book, on the relative strength of the powers concerned and the probable strategy that will be employed by each in the coming inevitable conflict, they have done humanity a disservice. To think war, write war and plan for war is the way to world suid There is no more reason why ould be a conflict in the in 1950 than there should be a conflict on the Atlantic "in 1930. The authors themselves catch a glimpse of this and terminate them, study with these words—"After examining every known factor in tthe light of British interests and of the interests of the Pacific itself, we reach the conclusion that the present, at its worst, is better than the past and that in the developments of today in Asia He the hope of a great tomorrow."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.