CONFERENCE IN LONDON

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27992, 12 June 1956, Page 13

CONFERENCE IN LONDON

Prime Ministers Of Commonwealth

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, June 11. A conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers beginning in London on June 27 will survey the world scene in the light of the recent denunciation of Stalin and the apparent adoption of “collective rule” by the Soviet leaders. The conference, which will be presided over for the first time by Sir Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister, is the first since January last year. Since then, much water has passed under the bridges of the Thames, the Volga, the Potomac, the Ganges and the Nile. Well-informed sources say that at no time since the end of the Second World War has the international political climate looked so steady.

The Prime Ministers of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Ceylon and the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation will meet against a background of successive major international developments which have left significant impacts on relations between the Communist and Western Power blocs.

These include: The creation of the five nation Bagdad Defence Alliance of Turkey, Iraq. Britain, Pakistan, and Persia. This has aroused the bitter animosity of the Soviet Union as well as of Egypt aed some other Arab States and the misgivings of several non-Com-munist countries, like France.

India is also hostile to the Pact. The Bandung Conference in Indonesia where, for the first time in history, the representatives of the Asian and African peoples gathered together to speak with one voice on many complex problems. The “Summit” Conference in Geneva, when it was tacitly accepted by the “Big Four’’ wbrld leaders that a nuclear war would mean co-destruction and must there-

fore be avoided by all. The subsequent fruitless meeting of their Foreign Ministers. The Soviet Union’s drive to establish herself as a great power in the Middle East through the supply of arms to Egypt and the wooing of the Arab States, and the consequent worsening of Arab-Israeli

tension. The visits to Jugoslavia, India. Burma Afghanistan and Britain of Marshal Bulganin, the Soviet Prime Minister, and Mr Khrushchev, the Soviet Communist Party chief. No Formal Agenda The conference will have no formal agenda. After the Prime Ministers have made statements on the international policies of their respective Governments and how they view the world situation from their capitals, the Conference is expected to begin general discussions. Western and Soviet policies in Europe will probably head the list. The British delegation will give a progress report on the various developments in the Atlantic Pact and Western European Union communities and Sir Anthony Eden will expound at length his views on the implications and possible results of his long private talks here with Marshal Bulganin and Mr Khrushchev.

World disarmament will be discussed. Britain and Canada are represented on the United Nations disarmament sub-committee which again failed in London in May to determine how the world should disarm and under what system of international control and inspection. The Far East situation, with special reference to the continuing tension between Communist China and the Chinese Nationalist regime of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on Formosa, is another topic. Situation in Indo-China The Commonwealth leaders will also consider the situation in IndoChina where India (chairman), Canada and Poland are supervising the. armistices in Vietnam, Laos ana Cambodia. The crisis in the strategic oil-rich Middle East where, in addition to the Arab-Israeli conflict there has been anti-British feeling in many Arab territories, will be reviewed.

At least one private session will be devoted to the financial and economic problems of the sterling area, the world’s largest single trading unit, of which Britain is the banker, and all Commonwealth countries, except Canada, are members. Mr Harold Macmillan, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, will survey the state of the area’s gold and dollar reserves and the prospects of greater international trade and industrial development within the Commonwealth. Attention will be given to various aspects of the £2,000.000.000 six year Colombo Plan for the eronomic development of South and South-east Asia to which all the independent Commonwealth States except South Africa belong. Topics of Commonwealth Interest Apart from these items of general discussion, there are certain topics which concern only some of the Commonwealth Nations. These will be discussed outside the full conference and include the Bagdad Treaty. Commonwealth members of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation are Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan. The situation in Malaya, Singapore, Cyprus and Aden, defence arrangements in the Pacific and purely bilateral trade questions, will also be discussed.

Three Commonwealth statesmen will be attending their first Prime Ministers’ Conference. They are Mr Johannes Strydom. of South

Africa, Mr Mohammed Ali of Pakistan and Mr Solomon Bandaranaike of Ceylon.

The new Prhne Minister of Ceylon is expected to take up with the British Ministers his demand that Britain shall give up her and air bases on the island. Two of the Prime Ministers will be making important political journeys before and after the Conference here. Mr Mohammed Ali is due to visit Peking at the invitation of Mr Chou En-fai. the Chinese Communist Prime Minister, before coming to London.