CANBERRA PACT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25443, 26 January 1944, Page 5

CANBERRA PACT

"NOTHING EXCLUSIVE" BRITISH PRESS COMMENT (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 24. “There is nothing exclusive or narrow about their plans,” says the Manchester Guardian, commenting on Australia and New Zealand’s Canberra conference. “ One admires their energy and clear-sightedness.” The Guardian praises the Anzac view of the air problem, and suggests that the sooner the proposed Pacific regional conference meets the better. “The war has brought a transformation. Australia and New Zealand can no longer remain quietly at home and leave both defence and, for the most part, foreign policy to the Home country. They have been close to .invasion; in future they will have to act together, but in close conjunction with other Pacific Ppwers, both great or small, in order to obtain a secure future for themselves and the whole area in which they lie. It should mean, among other things, greater strength for the new international order, and for the British Commonwealth.” The Australian and New Zealand Governments may be asked soon to seek revision of the Ottawa Agreement to meet changed conditions, according to a Canberra report. The request may come from the Federal Australian Labour Party Executive, now meeting at Canberra. This executive is the policy-suggesting instrument of the Australian Labour Movement. The executive meeting is being attended by Mr Curtin, the New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, and Mr M. Moohan, national secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party.