FLOOD ISOLATES N.S.W. TOWN

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27632, 13 April 1955, Page 13

FLOOD ISOLATES N.S.W. TOWN

(Rec. 11 p.m.) SYDNEY, April 12. Floodwaters have completely isolated the small town of Tilpa, 90 miles from Brewarrina, in western New South Wales. The last message to the 'Brewarrina post office was that the Darling river had risen to 40ft sin and the town was surrounded. The township has had weeks to prepare for the flood. A radio telephone taken into the town just before the last road was cut is being set up, and should be operating to the “flying doctor” base at Broken Hill today.

One of the advantages of joint action, he said, would be to put Formosa policy on a much broader basis, a more favourable basis with respect to United States relations with their countries. If the Communists rejected any peaceful solution then, at least, it would be clear to everyone who the aggressors were. If the Communist Chinese were bent on force, then there would be no alternative but to meet force with force. Mr Stevenson asserted that, lately. Formosa policy had been made not cnly on a unilateral basis but more on considerations of domestic political expediency than foreign realities. He said he did not belittle some recent achievements in the foreign fields, but “too much of our foreign policy of late has disclosed a yawning gap between what we say and what we do—between our words and our deeds.” “Or is it, as the Secretary of Defence says, that the loss of Quemoy and Matsu would make no significant military difference?” Mr Stevenson added. Use of Nuclear Weapons “Can they be defended without resort to nuclear weapons? “If not, while I know we have the means to incinerate, to burn up, much of living China, and quickly, are we prepared to use such weapons to defend islands so tenuously related to American security? ; “Finally, are we prepared to shock and alienate not alone our traditional allies, but most of the major nonCommunist Powers of Asia, by going to war over Quemoy and Matsu, to which the United States has no colour or claims, and which are of questionable value to the defence of Formosa?”

“Are we.” Mr Stevenson asked, “in short, prepared to face the prospects of war in the morass of China, possibly a global war, standing almost alone in a sullen or hostile world?’’

Mr Stevenson said that two years ago President Eisenhower announced he was “taking the wraps off” President Chiang Kai-shek, presumably for an attack on the mainland to reconquer China. “It was apparent to everyone else,” Mr Stevenson said, “that such an invasion across 100 miles of water by a small, over-age, under-equipped army against perhaps the largest army and the largest nation on earth could not possibly succeed without all-out support from the United States.” This move, he said, caused “widespread anxiety.” Mr Stevenson declared that the United States should abandon the policy of wishful thinking and wishful talking and renounce “go-it-alone-ism.” “The world will respect us for recognising mistakes and correcting them,” he said. “Let us face the fact that keeping friends jthese days calls for more statesmanship than challenging enemies, and the cause of world peace transcends any domestic political consideration,” Mr Stevenson said. “True Facts of America” “Let us once again present once more the true facts of America—warm and modest aqd friendly, dedicated to the welfare of all mankind, and demanding nothing except a chance for all to live and let live, to grow and govern as they wish, free from interference, free from intimidation, free from fear. “Our strength lies not alone in our proving grounds and in our stockpiles, but in our ideals, our goals, and their universal appeal to men of all faiths struggling to breathe free,” Mr Stevenson concluded. In other passages of his speech, which was broadcast nationally, Mr Stevenson called upon the United States to rally other free nations behind an open declaration of policy on Formosa, under which they would agree to stand with the United States in defence of Formosa. Mr Stevenson said the United States should “consult our friends, yes, and the uncommitted States, too, and ask them all to join with us in an open declaration condemning the use of force in the Formosa Strait, and agreeing to stand with us in the defence of its status —by independence, neutralisation, trusteeship, plebiscite, or whatever is wisest.” Mr Stevenson declared that the Eisenhower Administration’s “policy of extravagant words” in the Far Eastern situation has “alarmed our friends a good deal more than it has deterred aggressors.” “Our allies,” he said, “assumed that the great United States meant what it said, and it seems to me that when you compare what we have said with what we have done during the last two years it is little wonder that the Secretary of States is fearful lest the Chinese Communists really do think that the United States is a 'paper tiger.’ ” Charge of “Bluffing”

Mr Stevenson said he was not criticising the Administration “for abandoning these extravagant positions,” and added: “I am criticising it for taking such positions, for making threats which it is not prepared to back up, for bluffing and undermining faith in the United States.” The Soviet Union, he said, should be invited to declare its position on the situation involving Quemoy and Matsu. “With the assurance provided by such a common position concurred in by nations whose weight and prestige are essential to the ultimate success of any Formosan policy,” said Mr Stevenson, “neither we nor Chiang Kai-shek should any longer need to rely upon a militarily precarious position in these little offshore islands to resist the aggressive ambitions of the Chinese Communists towards Formosa.” , x Mr Stevenson said he believed that the division between the United States and its allies over the offshore islands was a greater peril to enduring peace than the islands themselves. He proposed that the United States and allied nations submit a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling upon the Assembly to condemn any effort to alter the status of Formosa by force. “And I think,” Mr Stevenson added, “we could afford to go further and call upon the United Nations General Assembly to seek a formula for the permanent future of Formosa, consistent with the wishes of its people, with international law, and with world security.”