17 MAY 1935, Page 28

Current Literature

THE MANCHURIAN ARENA : AN AUSTRALIAN VIEW OF THE FAR EAST

By F. M. Cutlack

The author of this little book (The Australia Book Co., 2s. 6d.) accompanied Mr. Latham, the Australian Attorney- General and Minister for External Affairs, on his Far Eastern Mission in 1934, as the correspondent of the Australian Press Association,- -Travelling beyond the official ambit 'of the Mission, Mr. Cutlack went to see for himself. what Japan was doing in Manchuria, and he returned to Australia convinced that the. cause of better relations in the Pacific, of- fair play, and of Australia's own interests, demand a review of the League's judgement against Japan, and a reconsideration of Britain's recent Eastern policy." Mr. Cutlack spent only. the brief period of a flying visit in North- East Asia and seems to have relied largely on Japanese • sources, supplemented by -information from • persons of -the well-known leaning of Captain-M.-D. Kennedy and Mr. Bland. Incidentally, he gives several pages to a -damaging account. of the Lytton Commission given by Mr. Kinney, the publicity agent of the South Manchurian Railway. But he has, none the ' less, written a useful, and perhaps significant pamphlet— significant, because ;if Mr. Latham carried - home the same convictions from- the- Far East, there is clearly matter for

serious discussion between the Foreign Office and the Australian Prime Minister, now in London, on the attitude of Australia to British policy in the Far East.