OURSELVES AND THE PACIFIC

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 11, 13 January 1945, Page 4

OURSELVES AND THE PACIFIC

■THOUGH we live in a Pacific country we New Zealanders keep our A eyes fairly firmly fixed on Europe. For almost a year, frcm about the time of Singapore's fall until the series of United States naval victories in the Solomons area gradually removed our worst fears, our attention was divided—we still looked at events in Europe, and with a deeper interest because our Division was engaged there, but we also looked at events nearer home. Port Moresby, Darwin, the Owen Stanley Ranges, Rabaul, Guadalcanal-—the names of places which previously most New Zealanders would have had difficulty in locating on a map, suddenly became immensely important. But when the onrush of the Japanese forces was checked, and then reversed, our attention was again given mainly to events far beyond the Pacific. Many New Zealanders find this attitude "natural," but others, including the Americans, whose forces played a great part in relieving us of our worst fears, find it inexplicably strange. It is, of course, easy to explain our perennial and intimate interest in the United Kingdom, and in the United Kingdom's relationship with Europe, in terms of history, culture, sentiment and commerce; but it is much less easy to explain why that interest became a preoccupying one, so much so that we were wont to look at the Pacific, and Pacific, affairs, through the eyes of people who knew very much less about them than we ourselves ought to have known. It is less important now to account for this obliquity of outlook in the past than it is to approbate that events in this war nave demonstrated its dangers It is <iot ti/at future events in Europe will lose their significance for us, as a loyal member of the British Commonwealth, or that we shall lose our interest in them; biu events have demonstrated that that interest must be accompanied, and indeed preceded, by an active practical recognition of our place in the Pacific. That ougnt to have taught the iessen that ignorance of, or a spectator's attitude toward, developments in the Pacific, in war or in peace, is foolish, and, but for great good fortune, could have been exceedingly costly. But has the lesson "been learned? It can be ciuestioned Avhetner the Dominion is at present playing a part in the Pacific war as important as that which, through the" wise decision to send a force to Fiji, it played in the months after Pearl Harbour. The part that it is playing—and it is not desired to belittie it because news of it is scanty—is being played almost exclusively by the R.N.Z.A.F. The New Zealand Army is not now represented The Australians (who, admittedly, have no land forces in Europe) are to participate in the Philippines fighting, as well as to carry out tne arduous task cf "mopping up" in New Guinea, New Britain andthe Solomons. In these areas, and also, when they enter the Philippines area in their co-operation with the American forces, on sea and land and 'in the air, the Australians will add to the experience they have already gained of fighting under Pacific conditions against an Asiatic enemy. If a Avar has to be fought in the future, they will have the knowledge and experience based en long and varied experience of how to fight it With the exception of the limited experience gained by the Third Division, now disbanded, New Zealand, on present indications, will have none It is greatly to be regretted that, for this reason, and not less for reasons of prestige, the NeAV Zealand Army is not represented by a substantial unit in the Pacific fighting. Has it, indeed, even one observer with the U.S. forces in the Philippines? On present indications the Dominion's military knoAVledge at the end of this war will be—as it was in 1939—suited to form the basis for participation in a future conflict in Europe, rather than in the Pacific. Yet, as Australia and New Zealand have officially recognised and asserted in the Canberra Pact, it is in the Pacific that our primary responsibilities lie, and will lie in the future. If it be said that the possibility of our ever again having to participate in a Avar ,is remote, the ansAver is tAVofold: First, we embraced that belief after the last Avar, and many of our finest young men paid for it with their lives. Unpreparedness, arising from failure to recognise in a practical Avay our interests and responsibilities, will not prevent war; it will make our winning of it more uncertain, and the price of victory far higher than it need be. Secondly, no system of international security will be dependable unless all those who subscribe to it, small nations as well as great, contribute to it, even when contribution seems iinnecessary, preparedness as well as pledges. The foundation of our unpreparedness can again be the belief that war will not come again, but it can also be a habit of thinking, even in the face of recent experience, that our real and near interests in the Pacific can be safely subordinated to others which, though they retain their importance, have forever lost their primacy. .