AUSTRALIA'S SECURITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17964, 14 December 1921, Page 9

AUSTRALIA'S SECURITY.

FEARS SET AT REST. A. and N.Z. SYDNEY. De_c 13. The Sydney Daily Telegraph, in a leader on the Pacific Treaty, declares that it scarcely needs to he said that the agreement, will be warmly welcomed by Australia. After, dealing with the position assigned to China by the conference, the paper says: "The right of any country to control the composition of its own people, and the direction of its trade was not publicly debated at the conference, but we gatb/r from, the compliments paid the Australian and New Zealand delegates it was, discussed in committee. We may be confident that these delegates nave dissipated any false idea of the aims of the White Australia policy, and any exaggerated im-' pression of the resources thai, are withheld from development by the exclusion of alien races, but it; is clear that for the future any nation must conduct its policy under the eyes of the whole world. International opinion has been invoked, and for the futiire will exercise its influence. We now, hold our territories subject to the review of the association which Washington has brought into •being;" The Melbourne Argus, oommenting on the' Pacific Treaty, says: "It is difficult to grasp at tho first reading the full significance to Australia. The adequate defence of the. Commonwealth has been the; subject of growing anxiety, but when the treaty is ratified, fears may be banished, and Australia may proceed with her peaceful, development undisturbed. The treaty does not necessarily abolish wars, but it provides such safeguards that war in the Pacific will' henceforth /be almost inconceivable. The Anglo-Japanese Alliarice will be annulled, but Australians will change the old love for the new;without regret. 'If the Washington Conference should, bear no more fruit than this it will still liave carried the world far along the road toward the goal of perpetual peace."