REHABILITATION OF KOREA

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27037, 12 May 1953, Page 10

REHABILITATION OF KOREA

“New Zealand Will Play Its Part” MR HOLLAND SPEAKS AT AUCKLAND LUNCHEON (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 11. New Zealand would play its part in the rehabilitation of Korea if peace came, the Prime Minister (Mr Holland) said in a luncheon address fn Auckland today. Korea must not be left open to the advance of communism, he said. This would be the great danger if she were left to rehabilitate herself. Mr Holland said that everything could not be left to the United States already carrying 95 per cent, of the burden in Korea. He was sure that if the Government decided to play its part, it would have the support of an understanding public. The fighting in Korea might end soon, he said. The hope was that the Communist change of front was sincere. It had to be treated as such until proved otherwise. If peace came to Korea tomorrow, the country would not be ready to manage a free economy. In Korea for the last 50 years opportunity had been lacking for this experience to be gained. “We must rehabilitate all Korea,” said the Prime Minister, “for the reason that every bit . has been fought over.” He spoke of essential industries destroyed, millions of homes lost, and 400,000 families homeless. A 250,000,000-dollar programme had been launched, he said, by the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency. New Zealand’s contribution would be £96,000. The United States would contribute two-thirds, plus its own civilian assistance programme costing 300.000,000 dollars. Mr Holland spoke of Korea in a survey of economic aspects of the cold war. He said that there were many trouble spots. Korea and the rest would be studied at the conferences he would attend in London. He would leave New Zealand tomorrow, he added, confident in the belief that the people of the Dominion would stand by the Government in any course it took after careful study to contribute to the welfare of distressed peoples. The need, he said, lay, in the fact that people living in squalor and misery might turn to communism in the hope it would better their lot if help did not come from the West.

The Prime Minister described the cold war as "a constant, relentlesslyplanned campaign to impose on the world a form of dictatorial government that is unacceptable to millions of people in the free world.” Millions of people had already been brought under this role by infiltration and conquest, he said.