MR EDEN’S VISIT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27025, 9 March 1949, Page 6

MR EDEN’S VISIT

Sir,—Your correspondent Laura Carden has certainly worked herself up into an excited state when she accuses me of “ scurrility." Judging from her effusion, I should say the boot was on the other foot. I at least did not descend to calling names in my criticism of Mr Anthony Eden. In the British House of Commons in 1942 Commander Southby (Conservative) stated that “it was utter folly to deny Singapore and its adjacent aerodromes the defences vital to them.” A prominent Liberal (Sir Percy Harris) expressed himself as “ not surprised that the people of the dominions feel that they have had a raw deal. If an Imperial War Cabinet was important in the last war, it is tenfold important now, when tiie life and the independence of the dominions are threatened.”

Events that followed swiftly showed that Mr Eden’s preference for Russia and neglect of Malayan defences boded ill for the dominions, and that fact stands out in history, and is not to be blotted out by hysterical excuses for “ unreadiness,” like those advanced by Mrs Carden. Tn view of his record it is not right that Mr Eden should be hailed as a Solon in regard to Pacific defences. Australia and New Zealand made a beginning more than a year ago when they signed the Canberra Pact, quite realising that their position in the Pacific demanded a Pacific outlook rather than an European one. They did not need Mr Eden's belated instruction.—l am, etc., D. G. A. Balclutha.