IMPORTANCE TO NEW ZEALAND

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28490, 21 January 1958, Page 12

IMPORTANCE TO NEW ZEALAND

Comment Bv “The Times” (N.Z. Prgss Association—Copyright > LONDON, January 20 Commenting on the visit of the British Prime Minister (Mr Macmillan) to Australia and New Zealand. “The Times” today said: “Strategically and economically if not spiritually, Australia and New Zealand are still a very long way off —farther in some respects than in 1945. “The first wish of Mr Macmillan will be to take the Australian and New Zealand Ministers into the confidence of the United Kingdom Government concerning all that has happened of common interest since the Empire Prime Ministers met in London last year. “New Zealand has lust joined the number of nations determined to resist the Indonesian claim to an extension of territorial waters not hitherto sanctioned by international law.

“In the background the resurgent shape of Japan can never be wholly absent from Australian and New Zealand estimates of the future, whether they are thinking of defence or of the domain of competitive trade,’.’ “The Times’’ said. “The Times” continued: “The Australian and New Zealand contribution to the strategic reserve of the British Commonwealth in Malaya, though still small, is of growing importance, and involves the two Dominions in a delicate relationship with that newlyindependent State.

“Great anxiety is felt by Australians as they study the manifestations of expansive nationalism in Indonesia.

“No doubt the apprehension of having eventually to share a frontier in New Guinea with this explosive and incalculable State will need to be seriously discussed between Mr Menzies and Mr Macmillan,” it said.