PACIFIC PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 69, 22 March 1941, Page 8

PACIFIC PROBLEM.

AUSTRALIA'S OUTLOOK.

REVIEW BY MR. R. G. CASEY.

(0.C.) SAN FRANCISCO, Mar. 4.

The newspapers of the United States have bristled with inspired articles describing the critical position of both New Zealand and Australia in the present ominous situation in the Pacific in view of the attitude of Japan. Some idea of how Australia's envoy to the United States *ees the Pacific problem was given in the "New York Times" Magazine when Mr. R. G. Cafev explained the place of Australia in the war. "Australia's view of her position in the Pacific?" Mr. Casey, first Minister of the Australian Legation in Washington, smiled at the very broad question. Then he said: "Perhaps the simplest way to -answer it is to show you a ma p." "The region of the world," he explained, "which, by London and Washington, is considered the Far East, is, to Australia., the very near north-we6t. Australia, as you know, is a willing, self-governing- member of a great cooperative enterprise known as the British Commonwealth of Nations. But something few Americans realise is that Australia has an area about that of the United States, with a population the size of New York City's. Our country lies close to the most densely populated area of the globe, but we have no great interior river system such as your Mississippi basin to enable us to support anything like your population. We are to-day some 7.000.000 people of pretty uniform stock —K."i per cent of us of British origin. All our history we have been naked and out in the open in the south-west Pacific with an umbrella of islands around us and over our heads—New Caledonia, New Guinea, Java, Borneo, the Philippines—and beyond. to our north-west, the land mass of East Asia. "Australia, as a white man's country, is a little more than 150 years old," added Mr. Casey, "settlement there having been initiated, after the American Revolution. It is, I think, reasonable to suppose that if Britain had not broken her teeth on the American colonies she would not have acquired the wisdom and tolerance in these matters that she has consistently shown in her dealings with us. Now if you come to Australia you will find a countrv and a people very like your own—one of the few remaining free democracies where a man can smile when he's pleased and swear when he's angry." Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Mr. Casey told the interviewer that far the first decades of her life Australia was lar too busy clearing land and planting whoit and jraising sheep and organising her vast island to be gravely preoccupied by foreign affairs or even by her status as a Crown Colony, whose external affairs were managed from London. Full Dominion status as a selfgoverning responsible entity whose only formal and legdi t < w>th England was "allegiance to the C\ jwn" came only with the Statute of Westminster in 1031. The decade of the 'twenties, though in rcstrospect apj»earing exceed - '"g'y calm, was in rKujty momentous, with decisions conccirnig the Pacific balance of power. The Washington Conference of 1921-22 was. intended, by relinquishment of a iaval race on the part of the United States by the acceptance by Britain and America of naval parity and by the provisions of other treaties, to secure a new Pacific adjustment, a new organisation of sea power and to offset in the British mind reluctance at abandoning the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. That alliance had led to Japanese participation on the side of I England during the last war, and while it endured had provided Australia with a sense of security. It meant to Australia that any Japanese expansion would be directed toward non-British territory and would not be made against the vital interests of Australia as part of the Empire. Without the alb'ance there was no such assurance. Tl.en came the Imperial Conference in L. naon in June, 1921, when Mr. W. M. Hughes was vociferous in his insistence on renewal. But the Canadian Prime Minister, bfked up by the known attitude o f Wasi.irgton, prevailed. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was net renewed. Its lap-ing left. A-jstral'a feeling more vu'jiarabi? than she had ever felt before.

Uncertain Value.

True, in agreement with Britain, the United States Fleet had been transferred to the Pacific. But, from the Australian

point of view, until the United States accepted the responsibilities of sea power in the maintenance of a peaceful order in the Pacific, the exchange of the Japanese Alliance for a not yet completely implemented, new order was of uncertain value. Not until the autumn of 1938, however, did the general populace of Australia begin to take a passionate personal interest in foreign affairs and to realise that the fate of small peoples, whether within or without the British Commonwealth of Nations, was a matter of grave and immediate concern to them. The Munich agreement was the first of two events that served as precipitat ing agents. Three weeks after the signing of that agreement the Australian Government began to step up its defence budget from the £21,000,000 allotted to defence for the three years, .lime, 1931. to June, 1937, to the more than £70.000.000, which were contemplated by February. 1939. The other event, forcing Australia to revisualise her role in the Pacific, was a new formulation of policy bv spokesmen of Japan. The Japanese Government on November 2, 1938, announced that Japan had adopted the doctrine of "East Asia for the Asiatics," and a few days later Prince Konove said: "The ultimate objective of the China incident lies not merely in achieving military triumph, but in the rebirth of China and the erection of a New Order in East Asia.*'

The net effect was to increase the Australian defence effort tremendously. Mr. Casey said: "Australia is now well on the way to becoming a British arsenal in the South-west Pacific. We are building destroyers, sloops, tanks, several types o£ aircraft, machine-guns, shells and much else. The total number of our men who have gone overseas or who are under arms or accepted for training in Australia* would, if translated into terms of your population, be the equivalent of over 5,000,000 men." International Barrlera. Talking of world economics Casey asked: "Can a nation continue to exist with, on the one hand, uncontrolled production and, on the other, strictly limited powers of absorption of its products both at home and abroad? We are dependent, for our prosperity on the purchasing power of the world. We are all in the same boat. Kach country tries to do the best for itself alone; it." builds up its tariffs . . . when the main hope in the world rests in the breaking down of international lrarriers. The world is in an awkward intermediate stage. Nationalism and private enti-rnrise have developed the globe quickly and effectively to this stage, but I think both will have to be c nsiJerrbly modified unless the civil's.V.ion th-it they have created is going to be self-destructive.

"As I see it, our main task everywhere will be to find some means of increasing the purchasing power of popu-

lations, first our own populations and then that of the submerged masses of China and India. Wo won't begin to solve our poet-war problem* until we devise some more workable and equitable method of absorbing the production of human toil. Cannot we pool our brains, now, as between countries of goodwill, and tackle the problems in time? We must have the courage to experiment, to make daring innovations. We Australians are aware of ourselves as a bridge between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, between the Western World and the land mass of Kast Asia. We remember that Britain has given us 150 years of protection so that we could develop in peace. We do not want war to come to our shores. Hut when we see a small country down (and we are n small country in population, if not in size) we have quite enough imagination to say to ourselves, 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Australia.' We know in our bones that our hope of salvation as a free and independent [>cople rests on, the survival of Great Britain and of the British Fleet. We were in the war voluntarily by our own declaration, 90 minutes after the declaration was made in London. The Australian troops fighting in Libya to-day are all volunteer troops. Do you doubt that we are proud of them ?" Australia and U.SA. In speaking of Australia's relation to the United States, Mr. Casey said: "I am content to rest with confidence upon our common outlook on life and our common ideals to bring us closer together. The war to-day is not merely about places on the map, it is between two sets of ideas. It is a struggle between the freedom of the individual against the mighty weight of the machine of State. God help us all if the individual—the human being—does not win. If I might paraphrase a famous speech by your great President Lincoln, I would dare to say: 'Can the Englishspeaking peoples any longer afford to be; 'a house divided against itself?'" ]