Western Unity Seen As Paramount Issue For Empire and West

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26780, 25 May 1948, Page 5

Western Unity Seen As Paramount Issue For Empire and West

New Zealand Press Association —Reuter’s—Copyright. CAPETOWN, May 23. “ In a world divided by a curtain of fear, an organisation of the West has become a paramount issue for both the Western nations and the British Commonwealth,” said General Smuts in a broadcast to the Empire on the eve of Empire Day. An association between the British Commonwealth and the United States was essential, he said. Such an association would provide a concentration of resources and a command of world communications which would give pause to any’potential aggressor. It would involve no change in the Commonwealth’s structure. Canada had long found loyal membership of the Commonwealth compatible with close co-operation with the United States, and had thus set a precedent for the “whole Commonwealth.

General Smuts said the British Commonwealth still stood as proof that human government on a world scale was possible, but the world had moved into a sombre period of history, a great shift of world power and security had occurred, and some of the Empire's losses could never be regained. British sea power might be recovered, even improved scientifically, but the Mediterranean life line could never be recovered. . Other dispositions must now be made to enable the Commonwealth to make good that grievous loss. The whole post-war position must be reviewed so that the Commonwealth could be fitted into the new pattern of world power. If a western union, with British membership, were brought about, General Smuts said, a middle group of Powers would arise, at least equal to the other two. The world's security would then rest on a triangle of Powers instead of being poised precariously between two Powers. In that western organisation the United States must have a special position because of the strength her association would provide. General Smuts saw no insuperable difficulty in Britain’s dual relationship with Western Europe and the British Commonwealth. Both needed Britain, who, with her unrivalled world-wide experience in human affairs, her sense of justice and balanced judgment, had

before her, perhaps, her greatest mission. The dominions have already welcomed western union- in principle. They will support it all the more strongly as they see it as a regional organisation of a kind which they favour for their own security, says The Times, which adds: “ Security, #• freedom and expansion—these, indeed, are the irarks of a wider union into which the Commonwealth and Western Europe can and must go together.” The Manchester Guardian pointed out that General Smuts saw “no insuperable difficulty ” in BrPain being the leading nation in both the Commonwealth and western union, and the Guardian added, his authoritative words should encourage the British Government to go forward for the western union in the confidence that she will have the great dominions’ support. The Daily Telegraph says that General Smuts believes that Britain, as mother of the most successful existing group of free States, has a great human mission strll before her. General Smuts has undiminished faith in a glorious recovery involving no change in the Empire structure. The parliamentary correspondent of The Times recalls that the British Government amendments to the British Nationality Bill tabled in the House of Commons by the Lord Chancellor propose that any British subject may be known alternatively as a “ Commonwealth citizen.”