The Colombo Plan

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30481, 1 July 1964, Page 14

The Colombo Plan

Since the Colombo Plan for co-operative economic development was conceived 14 years ago today, the population of the area served has increased by 166 million. Yet, in spite of all the difficulties of racial backwardness, national incomes have continued to grow just a little faster than population. The economic growth of South and South-east Asia would be considered a remarkable achievement if it were not engaged in a life-and-death race with population. Without the Colomba Plan that race would have been lost long ago, with starvation and disease the winner’s prize. The moral, of course, is not that a plan producing so little result should be abandoned but rather that it should be expanded. Indeed, it has been expanded since that first meeting in Colombo, on the one hand by the extension of aid to needy countries outside the Commonwealth, and on the other by the generous participation of the United States, in particular, and Japan. Industrial production has risen faster than expected. It is primary production that is lagging; and the next meeting of the consultative committee in London will have to give serious consideration to accelerating rural development.

One of the most useful products of the Colombo Plan to date is the better understanding of the needs of South and South-east Asia, of the ways to satisfy them, and of the particular difficulties of working with governments of varying efficiency and probity. The basic principles of mutual aid and selfhelp remain, because in the long run Asian countries can escape from their plight only through their own efforts. The Colombo Plan aims to provide them with, as it were, a fulcrum. AU countries in the plan now know a good deal more about the nature of the aid required, and the conditions on which it should be furnished. It is reaUsed, for instance, that a poor country cannot start repaying loans until its economy provides some surplus above current needs. Developing countries also need better trading opportunities in Western countries, almost every aspect of whose trading poUcies discriminates against them. Indeed, Mr B. K. Nehru, Indian Ambassador to the United States, has suggested that the best solution would be one-way free trade; but few Western Governments could introduce such a policy over the protests of sectional interests. India, of course, is a special case, not only because of its size but because of the responsibility and integrity of its Government. Some kinds of society seem able to do nothing better with foreign money than to waste it; Yet* it is hard for the donor countries to discriminate. They can do it best not by excluding ill-governed countries but by being more liberal to the countries that can make good use of the help they are given:

-New Zealand, has had a modest part' in the Colombo Plan, contributing about £1 million a year in addition to technical assistance through places in universities and similar institutions. Australia’s contributions have been approximately in proportion. Is that enough from the two countries that have the most practical reasons for interest in the political’ stability of Asia? It would not have gone very far if the United States were not underwriting the’ Colombo Plan to the extent of £350 million a year. Nor are political reasons the only reasons why New Zealand and Australia should interest themselves in this area. Surely prosperous people must feel some moral obligation to help their poverty-stricken neighbours.