COMMONWEALTH CONFERENCE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27055, 2 June 1953, Page 7

COMMONWEALTH CONFERENCE

“Economist” Surveys Problems (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, June 1. “After the Commonwealth Prime Ministers have drawn and acknowledged the plaudits of the crowds as they ride in their carriages along the Coronation route, they will get down to other business,” says the weekly journal, the “Economist.” “They will have plenary meetings and also, possibly more usefully, informal discussions. “There will be much to discuss. It has 'already been announced that Mr Nehru and Mr Mohammed Ali are to talk about Kashmir. African and Australian and New Zealand problems suggest more than one regional tete-a-tete. “New Zealand’s candidature for the Security Council will give special importance to Mr Holland’s talks with the other Prime Ministers. Any indications which Dr. Malan may give of the Nationalist policy in South Africa and towards the Commonwealth will now be received with particular interest and perhaps dread by everybody else. “Mr Nehru will be a key figure in discussions of the Russian reaction to the proposals for a four-Power conference. “The neighhbour’s view of the balance of forces in Republican Washington which Mr St. Laurent can give will be of unusually close interest to his colleagues. “Both in the affairs of its individual members and in those of the Commonwealth as a whole, the conference takes place at a critical moment,” says the “Economist.” It looks as if the Prime Ministers will have to steel themselves to some disappointments. While Mr Butler can certainly report a better state of health in the Commonwealth balance of payments, there are some individual exceptions to the rule; aid to Pakistan may well be put forward as an essential interest of the Commonwealth.

“On the economic programme agreed at the last Commonwealth conference six months ago—the so-called plan for convertibility of sterling—Mr Butler must report negative results. This programme was built round a proposition that the United States would quickly back a realistic scheme of self-help. Since it is now Plain that there must be at least a waiting period before the policy of the new Administration is at all precise, large modifications of Commonwealth policy will certainly be suggested. “Trade expansion will be thought of

more as a matter of relations with the European Payments Union, rather than as something that depends directly and immediately on American policies for trade liberalisation aid and overseas investment. “The internal problems of Commonwealth development have become even more important than they seemed when the convertibility plan was being formed,” says the ‘Economist.” “But it is perhaps issues of foreign policy that will command most attention—on which an extraordinarily diverse group of men who are responsible for the destinies of 600.000,000 people are likely to be at their best.”