SECOND EDITION CANBERRA PACT

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24825, 23 February 1944, Page 6

SECOND EDITION CANBERRA PACT

AUSTRALIAN CRITICISM SLIGHTS TO AMERICA SIR K. MURDOCH'S VIEWS By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Special Australian Correspondent) !(Becd. 1.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, Feb. *2 ''The Australian-New Zealand pact had its good side in getting two Anzac countries together, but in every other way it has done harm. Now' the resentments have begun and the snubs are arriving," Bays Sir Keith Murdoch, in an article in the Melbourne 'Herald criticising certain sections of the agreement signed last month in Canberra. He directs particular attention to "slights" offered to the United States. "The Canberra conference was the first meeting of the two South-west Pacific Governments since America saved their life, home and land," Sir Keith writes. "Some thankful and comradely resolution might have been ex'pected. And Britain did not fare much better. She was not consulted about the pact." Sir Keith adds that, while Mr Fraser and Mr. Curtin both spoke warmly of the British tie, they announced an Australian alliance of farreaching scope, and a further segregation of Australia and New Zealand as political influences in the Pacific Ocean. "While British tolerance will not resent this," Sir Keith_ says, "real doubt and puzzlement will occur when the" pact sets out Australasian policy on the wide and vital issues upon which Britain, the United States and Russia have not yet been And .when it is declared that Australia will convene a conference of Powers with South-west Pacific interests to form a regional council, on which there might he accredited representatives of Britain and America, we will look for trouble." '