ABSTRACT
The Second World War brought major changes into the lives of the native peoples of the Western Pacific. An analysis of the main changes, and of the social processes at work, is important, for two practical reasons. One is that much of the Western Pacific is administered by members of the Commonwealth, and we have an interest in those local problems. The second reason is that the native peoples there have shown some originality in their reactions to civilization, and a more exact knowledge of those reactions bears on the wider question of the chances of achieving our democratic and humanitarian aims in the less-developed parts of the world today. The war, especially by the entry of United States forces into the Western Pacific, brought home the notion of differences in national sovereignty and national attitudes between white men.
