Empire Foreign Policy No Longer Left Mainly To Mother Country To Decide

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23154, 17 January 1950, Page 5

Empire Foreign Policy No Longer Left Mainly To Mother Country To Decide

(N.Z.P.A. —Reuter—Copyright.) (9 a.m.) COLOMBO, Jan. 16. Whereas under the old Dominions system the foreign policy was largely left to Britain, now, with the expansion of the Commonwealth to India, Pakistan and Ceylon, a “pretty regular form of consultation” had become imperative, the British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Ernest Bevin, told a press conference this morning.

Mr. Bevin added that the problems confronting the Commonwealth were so inter-related to world problems and so complex that, apart from the Ministerial job of reaching a consensus of Commonwealth opinion on broad lines of policy, it also was necessary to maintain simultaneous contact between officials who actually were entrusted with working out these problems.

“Tb,3 Commonwealth Finance Ministers met in London to face the dollar-sterling crisis, but the Commonwealth has not yet got to grips as it must do with th'3 whole economic problem,” said Mr. ’ Bevin.

Mr. Bevin said that the key to his nolioy since he became the Foreign Secretary was that no steady foreign poliev could exist without the necessary economic basis.

“A new approach is taking shape,” he declared. “Britain no longer fills her old role as the finance centre of the world. It is not that her contribution is less but the total load to be carried has become bigger.

‘‘The United States, which has become the greatest creditor-country, will play its role and it has been seen in Colombo how Australia, Ceylon and New Zealand are taking a great part, this time on the economic plane which is an essential support of the foreign policy. “In Asia the new upsurge of nationalism has resulted in new liberties, but liberty without sound economic conditions can lead to disappointment, so we must go on striving for such conditions . “The difficulty is that the task of raising standards is being conducted simultaneously over such wide areas of the world. On Huge Scale Mr. Bevin said that both the demand and plans to meet the demand were on a huge scale. The problem of how to meet the demands—not only inside the Commonwealth but in Asian countries, whose economy was as inter-related with the Commonwealth as was that of Western Europe—was what the Colombo Conference had attempted to understand.

It is a tremendous task, but I think we shall succeed with patience,” said Foreign Secretary. . He added that he thought it misleading to draw a close analogy between the Colombo economic plan and Marshall Aid for Europe. He did not think that conditions in South-East Asia were propitious for a self-help organisation on lines parallel to the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. The Commonwealth consultative committee in Canberra would be on a Ministerial level, “but with a pretty strong working party of experts under the Ministers.” said Mr. Bevin. He hoped the committee would in a general way be complementary to the United Nations Economic Commission for the Far East. Japanese Peace Plans The committee, he thought, might help speed ud the work in the United Nations and turn it into more concrete channels. Mr. Bevin said that the Colombo Conference had looked at the Japanese peace treaty proposals worked out in 1947 in Canberra and brought them up to date. “But we have not got the United States proposals—and they are the biggest factor—so we could only try to co-ordinate our own views,” he continued.

Britain had contributed £750,000,000 in grants for aid and release from sterling balances to South and SouthEast Asia since the war. This represented half the total post-war contribution ~ *. n had made to other countries. “This is about the load we can carry ” Mr. Bevin added. He did not expect the United States to contribute aid to South and South-East Asia. “All we can hone is that she will be interested,” he said