ENVOY TO USA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 15, 18 January 1940, Page 10

ENVOY TO USA

MR. CASEY'S NEW POST

THE AIM OF AUSTRALIA

PACIFIC RELATIONS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, January 10. There has been universal approval here of the choice of Mr. Richard Gardiner Casey as Australia's first independent diplomatic representative, "Envoy Extraordinary Plenipotentiary" at Washington. He is considered to be the ideal man for the position. An engineering .graduate of Cambridge University, Mr. Casey served with the A.I.F. in the 1914-18 war, rising from lieutenant to major and winning the D.S.O. and the M.C. From 1922 to 1929, he was Australian liaison officer in the Foreign Office, gaining an insight and knowledge of international affairs unrivalled by any other Australian. His appointment having been terminated by the Scullin Labour Government, Mr. Casey was elected for the Corio (Victoria) Federal constituency, and was returned at two subsequent elections. In 1933 he was appointed Assistant Treasurer, and a couple of years later Treasurer. In 1937 he was given the task, as Minister of Supply and Development, of building up Australia's defence equipment and organising industry for war purposes. He visited England in 1937 as one of Australia's representatives at the Coronation, and again recently to attend conferences with British Ministers. He was appointed a Privy Councillor last year. "ENGLISH EXTERIOR." Mr. Casey is suave, polished, gracious, and dignified. Though friendly and approachable, he is not one of the hearty "back-slapping" type of Australians, but' despite what many call his "English exterior," he is a thoroughly good Australian. He is in his fiftieth year. He belongs to a wealthy Queensland family, and will have no need to worry about the comparative smallness of the salary— £2500 a year —he will be paid as Australian Minister at Washington. "This is the first time that Australia has made a full diplomatic appointment to a foreign country, and the event is therefore of great historic interest to us," the Prime Minister, Mr. Menzies, said: "We have for long felt that the problems which concern the nations surrounding the Pacific Ocean are of special and vital interest to Australia, and that as an independent nation within the British family of nations we might quite reasonably expect to play an effective part in the development and strengthening of peaceful contacts between all the Pacific Powers. As a British community, ,we feel that we have a great deal in common with the United States, and that by closer contact with them we may contribute to a fuller understanding between the English-speaking peoples of the world, and through that understanding, to the peace and wellbeing of the world." - FRIENDSHIP OF AMERICA. Australia, he said, attached importance to having the friendship of the United States, and was prepared to do much to improve it. He believed, however, that the friendship of Australia as an integral part of the British Empire was of importance to the United States. The British and American peoples had too much in common not to realise that, whatever their organic relations might be, they were both exercising similar functions, and that the safety and development of each was ,of profound, importance to the other. "You may ask why, when there is a British Ambassador at Washington, it is thought necessary to appoint an Australian Minister," he continued: "Somebody may say to you that this sort of thing indicates that the various British nations are falling out with each other.' Nothing could be further from the truth. The presence of an Australian Minister at Washington, so far from weakening the position of the British Empire at that capital, will strengthen it. Just as we feel that we , are contributing effectively towards the future peace of the world by sending Australian sailors and soldiers and airmen to fight in Europe, so dp we believe- that, by increasing our diplomatic contacts round the Pacific, we will be contributing powerfully towards that common understanding without which permanent peace would be: impossible."