AUSTRALIA & N.Z.

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 5, 7 January 1944, Page 3

AUSTRALIA & N.Z.

COMING CONFERENCE

IMPORTANT SUBJECTS

(Special P.A. Correspondent.) Rec. 1 p.m. SYDNEY, Jan. 6. The pending conference of senior Australian and New Zealand Ministers, to be held in Canberra this month, is being enthusiastically anticipated by Commonwealth political observers. It is seen as heralding the closest possible liaison between the neighbour Dominions, as well as foreshadowing much wider post-war relations with other Pacific nations. Agreement on the practical principles governing the common security and the future development of the two countries is regarded as certain. "Such conferences should be regular and routine affairs," declares the "Melbourne Herald." "That they have not been so is a discredit to earlier Governments. If the Pacific war has achieved one good thing it is that it has put an end to the Australian myth of isolation and forced us not only to know our neighbours, but to take heed of them." SECURITY IN PACIFIC. The post-war policy to guard against future aggression in the Pacific will be a major topic for consideration by the conference. Australia is believed to favour the formation of a Pacific security zone policed by the Powers holding Pacific interests. It is suggested that the security zone proposal for the Pacific could be fitted into a general scheme for ensuring future world peace which will be formulated by a general peace conference. Under the Pacific security zone proposal, the nations whose territorial interests are affected will probably contribute men, money, and materials for the defence of the area. | AGREEMENT NECESSARY. As Australia and New Zealand are the most likely sufferers from any future aggression in the Pacific, it is accepted here as essential that they should reach agreement on this vital matter before any broader conferences are held involving other imperial interests or foreign Powers. Considerable interest has been aroused in Australia by Mr. Nash's suggestion of a Five-Power Federation covering the Pacific islands from the Solomons to the Marquesas. Such an Australia-New Zealand zone of security might be a second line of defence to the suggested American belt of bases running across the Pacific from

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