INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27733, 10 August 1955, Page 14

INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS REPORT

SECURITY OF SOUTH-EAST ASIA (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, August 9. The problem in the international sphere most immediately and constantly before New Zealand had been that of the security of South-east Asia, said the Minister of External Affairs (Mr T. L. Macdonald) in his annual report, tabled today in the House of Representatives. The particular significance of the signing of the South-east Asia Collective Defence Treaty was that it brought this country for the first time into direct treaty relationiship with a number of Asian countries. “It is a merit of 5.E.A.T.0.., however, that this was done within the framework of the United Nations and as part of a collective enterprise in which the United Kingdom and the United States were also our partners,” said the Minister.

“To some extent the new treaty may indeed be considered as supplementing the Anzus Treaty, though the latter was in no sense weakened but retained as a valued separate instrument. In deciding that New Zealand strategic obligations in the Middle East should be cancelled and similar responsibilities assumed in the Southeast Asian area, the supreme importance to New Zealand of the security of Europe and the major importance of an effective Allied defence of the Middle East were at no time forgotten.” The over-all picture was far from being such as to induce complacency, said Mr Macdonald. No agreement was yet in sight in the Formosa Straits area, and a false move on either side could well precipitate a wider conflict. Even in areas where defensive lines were drawn more clearly than in the Formosan area, preparedness for defence was ultimately no substitute for peaceful co-operation. “That peace is too precarious which is dependent on the deterrent effect of the hydrogen bomb,” said Mr Macdonald. “It is only when and in so far as a firm position is established and it proves possible to proceed to better relations between the two major world blocs that we shall be able to record indisputable progress in international relations. “New Zealand, which has interpreted its duties in the Security Council as a trust in the interests of world peace, will certainly support all responsible efforts to this end. The United Nations machinery is at hand and must be ‘made to work, not (as has too often been the case), so as to produce disharmony, but (as was intended) so that the United Nations becomes in reality ‘a centre for harmonising the actions of nations.’ ”