The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1948. North Atlantic Pact

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25638, 29 October 1948, Page 6

The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1948. North Atlantic Pact

Events in the last few days have brought a North Atlantic security pact, embracing Canada, the United States, and the Western Union, a long stage nearer. The conference of British Commonwealth leaders, by approving Britain’s association with Western Union, and the Western Union conference of Foreign Ministers in Paris, by approving the principle of a North Atlantic regional pact in which the five Powers would be defensively linked with the United States, have cleared the course of Canadian policy. For obvious reasons, Canada has long been inclined to base her plans of defence on co-operation with the United States; and it has been correspondingly difficult to fit them into any close-knit schemes of Commonwealth defence. But the wider strategic situation to which all plans must now be adjusted is one in which Canada’s special problem is more readily solved than ever before; and Canada has played a leading role in efforts to create a reliable defence understanding between North America and Western Europe. In a succession of remarkable speeches, and by his consistent policy at the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr St. Laurent, who is to succeed Mr Mackenzie King as Prime Minister, has advocated equally close relations with the United Kingdom and Western Europe on the one hand and with the United States on the other, accepting for Canada her geographical role as a bridge between the two with a special part to play in the front line of any conflict across Arctic regions. On the one hand, Canada has agreed vith the United States that their defence establishments are to collaborate* for joint security in peace as they did in war; on the other, Canada has strongly upheld the case for the North Atlantic security pact Of course, the answer to the question whether the pact will be concluded and made effective can be given only in Washington, and cannot be finally given till a new President and Congress are ready to give it. In the meantime, such are the apparent strength and validity of bi-partisan foreign policy that the American response to the proposal defined in Paris can hardly be doubted. Western Europe has faced economic difficulties so severe that even the advance to recovery has only made its military weakness clearer. The Anglo-French Treaty of Dunkirk and the Pact of Brussels could only declare a co-operative purpose which, if the five partners were obliged to rearm and to defend themselves, they would not have the resources to fulfil.- The European Recovery Programme is designed, sparely, to make them adequate to rebuild economic power, not military power as well. The French have been most uneasy about, committing themselves, without American guarantees, to defensive arrangements which, in the present situation, ean only be interpreted as preparations to meet a Russian attack. The difficulty has been acknowledged in the United States and the' promise of help in essential defensive measures has been responsibly made, but in general form. In March, .Mr Truman said that the United Stated would find “appropriate means” of helping the democracies to defend themselves. In May, Senator Vandenburg put before the Senate a resolution calling'on the President to consider how the purposes of the European Recovery Programme might be promoted by the “ progrps“sive development of regional arrangements for self-defence” in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and by “ associating ” the United States with them; and in June the Senate adopted the resolution—by 64 votes to 4. This month, in Paris, General Marshall and Mr Dulles have said as much as can be said without the specific authority of Congress to assure, everybody that this resolution will not wobble. It means specific military commitments, it means military aid, it means taxes, it means “ European entangle- “ ments ”, it means the absolute end of isolationism. It must mean all of those thjngs to the President and Congress and people of the United States; and how much that means perhaps only American statesmen and historians and citizens can quite understand. But it can also mean peace.