Singapore’s Importance Again Appraised

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28491, 22 January 1958, Page 11

Singapore’s Importance Again Appraised

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, January 21. Britain is not going to let herself be bundled out of Singapore by some twist in the island’s politics. This, according to the Singapore correspondent of “The Times,” was the frame of mind of the governors, ambassadors, ■ high commissioners and service heads who represent Britain in countries of the Indian and Pacific Oceans when they met for their annual conference in Singapore—a conference which was addressed by Mr Macmillan on his way to New Zealand. “A determination as exact as this, the correspondent goes on. may not have been in Mr Macmillan’s mind when he approached Singapore but it seems to have been projected by diplomats he met there. "It seems impudence for an

island such as Singapore to claim 1 the centre of a stage as wide as 1 half the Equator, but as men who 1 attended the conference summarised the affairs in the coun- > tries where they work, the dis- i cussion came back repeatedly to Singapore. “This is not because Sinaapore ' is where the meeting took place 1 but because the forces which pull to and fro in other Eastern 1 countries stand out on this green island like pipelines across the desert. The feeling seemed to be that Britain should not proclaim a stand here and then slide away. The “Yorkshire Post” discussing the area which it says Britain calls the Far East and her kinsfolk in Australia and New Zealand call the Near North, states that here, in this difference of terminology, is the primary unsettled, and indeed almost unmentioned. topic of controvery. if not of conflict which the conference ought to consider. "But will it. and if it does, will if have the benefit of top-grade assistance and information from Canberra and Wellington?

"To put it bluntly, to Australia and New Zealand the Near North is grimly near and getting nearer every year to them. Its question mark and challenge are Immediate. "To the majority of the electorate in Britain the Far East is agreeably remote. But at Singapore there are service chiefs pointing out with cold quiet logic that Singapore is the last military base which Britain and the Commonwealth possesses In this whole enormous region, that there is no conceivable alternative to it, and that on it exist facilities which compose in the mid-20th century what is still called a base. "The service chiefs can point out that now. at the litter end of a long process by which the British Empire has been liquidated. the political foundations to such defensive security as the Commonwealth retains are steadily growing shakier and shakier and they can advise Mr Macmillan to consider seriously the effect on Britain end the Commonwealth if Singapore as a military base is lost as India and Ceylon have been lost or -yen if its use is restricted by treaty 1