PAN-PACIFIC UNION, THE, an international organiza tion which took out its charter in 1917. It is the first of a num ber of similar organizations born in Hawaii and throughout the Pacific area.
The Union called several small conferences prior to the World War; in 1921 it called and financed the first of the Pan-Pacific science congresses, now the recognized official science body of the Pacific area. It next called and financed in quick succession a Pan-Pacific educational congress, a Pan-Pacific press congress, a Pan-Pacific commercial congress, and a Pan-Pacific food con servation congress. Out of this latter grew a permanent Inter national Sugar Technologists Conference body, a Pan-Pacific Fisheries Association and the Pan-Pacific Research Institution.
The Pan-Pacific Union organized the calling of a Pan-Pacific Y.M.C.A. secretarial congress. Out of this grew the Institute of Pacific Relations. The Pan-Pacific Union has issued or is is suing calls for the following conferences: a Pan-Pacific women's congress, Aug. 1928; a Pan-Pacific surgical congress, Aug. 1929, and a Pan-Pacific medical congress 193o, as well as Pan-Pacific ethical and students conference within the near future, and a second Pan-Pacific commercial congress and a Pan-Pacific botanic conference.
At these conferences points of agreement are sought and plans laid for accomplishing definite projects on which all peoples of the Pacific can agree are for the welfare of the great area which is the home of more than half of the human race. Representatives
from Pacific lands only and of the League of Nations are invited to these conferences.
The heads of all Pacific Governments are the honorary heads of the Pan-Pacific Union, which itself is a non-official organiza tion. The operating offices have been established in Honolulu.
In 2908 the Hon. Walter F. Frear, then governor of Hawaii, became president of what later became the Pan-Pacific Union. He was followed by Gov. C. J. McCarthy, president of the Union, then by the Hon. Wallace R. Farrington, as governor of Hawaii. There were in 1928 3o trustees of the Union, who were leading men of Pacific nationalities. In many of the Pacific lands Pan Pacific Associations have been organized, national in scope, as the Union is international. Under the associations are Pan Pacific clubs in the various cities; these are local. In Japan, ,Prince I. Tokugawa heads the association and Viscount T. Inouye the Tokyo Pan-Pacific club which is the open forum for interna tional discussion in Japan. There are other Pan-Pacific clubs in Osaka, Kyoto, etc., and in China, as well as elsewhere in Pacific lands.
The Pan-Pacific Union has as its official organ The Mid-Pacific Magazine, an illustrated monthly, and publishes the Bulletin of the Pan-Pacific Union monthly (free) as well as the Journal of the Pan-Pacific Research Institution and Pan-Pacific Youth. It also publishes in book form the proceedings of the conferences.
(W. R. F.)