NEW DELHI TALKS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25742, 2 March 1949, Page 5

NEW DELHI TALKS

Effort To Help Burma

“PART OF WIDER TURMOIL”

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, March 1. “Not beiore it was time, British Commonwealth representatives have been meeting in New. Delhi to see if they can help Burma in her present distress,” says “The Times” in a leading article. “The conference is only a small beginning and represents only a few countries, directly interested in a single part of the wider turmoil.

"The revolutionary movements in Asia as a whole are changing the world strategic and political map. The destinies of nearly 1000.000,000 people are being shaped. Communists are either in the leadership or striving towards it. No recognition that the Western world must look first, as it must, to the Atlantic and to Western European safety, can lessen the importance of the interests at stake.

“The Delhi conference will serve a much wider purpose if it is used as an example to encourage much closer consultation among all Western Powers on great questions of common' concern.”

After commenting that the openly Communist element in the insurgent forces in the Asian countries becomes weaker and the honestly nationalist element stronger as one moves from north to south, “The Times” says that in the southern regions there are still independent nationalist forces with which the Western Powers might conceivably reach a new partnership. “One lesson to be drawn in the face of the present disorders in Asia is that the Western and other friendly Powers, especially those of the British Commonwealth, must plan their defensive strategy afresh from Japan to the Indian Ocean.” says “The Times.” “Military strategy by itself can never be an effective answer to Communism. The Western Powers need also to consult on the main lines of their political and economic policies in Asia.”

The Prime Minister of India (Pandit Nehru) presided when the representatives of Britain, India, and AustraJW met for informal talks on Burma yesterday. Among the representatives who attended were Mr Malcolm MacDonald, British Special Commissioner in South-east Asia, Dr. H. V. Evatt (Australia), and Mr Arthur Bottomley, the British Minister of Overseas Trade, who is holding trade talks with the Government of India. Political quarters believe that Burmese efforts to obtain financial assistance were an important part of the agenda of the conference.