Australia's View of Pacific Problems

Abstract

JN presenting their opening address to this Conference the Australian delegates desire to express their appreciation of the privilege they enjoy of meeting in Japan-this beautiful country with its long history. Many Australians have a strong historical sense, but in Australia it has no food on which to feed, and to come into this country, with its wonderful memorials of a culture continuous over thousands of years, means the gratification of instincts long starved. Japan is distinguished with the greatest nations of history in that she not only conserves the beautiful things of the past, but faces the future with the genius and energy of youth. Surely this wonderful combination of the conservative and the creative characters in our hosts should be an inspiration peculiarly valuable to those who work in this Conference. In this address, of course, I do not speak as a representative of the Australian people. My colleagues and I speak for ourselves, giving an impartial account of certain features of Australian conditions and certain elements in her policy. I would not apologise in my own country for a critical note which you may discern, for we have the duty of candour, nor have we avoided subjects on which there may be difference of opinion, for it is the function of this Institute to solve these differences. Since the last Conference of the Institute at Honolulu the Australian Group has loyally carried out the main purpose of the organisation, namely, to study the various problems affecting Pacific peoples with a view to improving their mutual relations. The results of these studies will be available to members of the Conference, and I think that this address will be best occupied in giving to the Conference not a summary of the results of our research, but a review of some of