PROFOUND INFLUENCE OF REGIONAL PACTS ON EMPIRE POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27042, 29 March 1949, Page 5

PROFOUND INFLUENCE OF REGIONAL PACTS ON EMPIRE POLICY

New Zealand Press Association—Special Correspondent Rec. 10 p.m. LONDON, Mar. 28. Speculation about regional pacts in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean arising out of the North Atlantic Pact, is discussed by the Economist. The movement of ideas is under way, it says, which must profoundly influence the strategic, even perhaps the constitutional arrangements of the British Commonwealth. Regional defence and consultation are no novelty, for the Dominions, it continues, but what is new, indeed revolutionary, is the fact that Canada has taken a leading part in working out a document so binding as the North Atlantic Pact. It is obvious that the signing of the Pact on April 4 will be the turning point in the history of the British Commonwealth. For Canada has been led by its common strategic interest with the United States to undertake, at the side of Britain, peacetime commitments in Europe which are without precedent in the history of the Dominions.

Much in the Commonwealth policy that had hitherto been cautious, implicit and informal has become in the Canadian policy, bold, explicit and formal. Such a development and the world situation that has brought it about, call for fresh consultations between Mr Attlee and his dominion colleagues,” says the Economist. It observes that one lesson of the Japanese war was that the security of the Pacific dominions depends henceforward on close Anglo-American co-operation. What was once a distinctive Canadian attitude to the future 6f Anglo-Ameri-can relations is becoming the dominant attitude of the Commonwealth as a whole. “Before the war,” It continued, “the outstanding feature of the dominions’ foreign policies was reluctance to assume specific obligations, above all in Europe, but Canada’s implicit support for western union and its explicit participation in the Atlantic Pact now involve it in clearly defined commitments in relation to Europe.” The Economist endorses the comment of the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr St. Laurent, that “we must at all _ costs avoid the fatal repetition of history of pre-war years when the Nazi aggressor picked off his victims one by one. Such a process does not end at the Atlantic.” It does not end either at the Pacific or the Himalayas, adds the Economist, and asks how far Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and Pakistan are likely to modify a reluctance never so pronounced in the Pacific as in North America to accept specific defence commitments. It adds that in principle Australia and New Zealand would almost certainly welcome a Pacific pact, but they recognise that the time to negotiate it may not come till the Far Eastern horizon is clear. “None doubt their awareness of the need of co-operation for defence in the East or in the West.” Major Problems In general, it says, the Commonwealth countries may be divided into Canada, Australia and New Zealand on the one hand —which welcome closer Anglo-American co-operation—-and those on the other hand, like South Africa and India, which acknowledge its necessity with a greater or lesser degree of reluctance. Though it suggests that Canada has overhauled and passed other dominions in readiness to assume a proportionate share of its obligations as a “middle Power,” it thinks that Australian initiative in the Pacific, Indian leadership in Southern Asia, and South Africa’s growing interest in territories north of Limpopo all suggest that other members of the Commonwealth are likely to undertake ever-increasing regional responsibilities. The co-ord-ination of regional plans and expanding responsibilities in other directions, The Economist thinks, may well confront the Commonwealth with major problems when its Prime' Ministers meet next month.