DANGER TO WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27357, 5 April 1950, Page 8

DANGER TO WORLD

Possible Clash In India SOVIET INTERVENTION FEARED Daily Times Special Service AUCKLAND, Apl. 4. “Until India is reunited, I feel there is a grave danger that she will be a weak spot in the world for us as well as for herself,” said Sir Robert Holland in an address to the English-speaking Union today. Sir Robert, who was speaking from long administrative experience in India and the East, spoke of the danger of Russian participation in any hostilities which might flare up between India and Pakistan.

Fortunately, war was now an expensive and uncertain thing, but the troops of the two countries were now facing each other in Kashmir and an outbreak Could occur, said Sir Robert. This was one of the reasons why the leaders of the two countries were meeting in Delhi and why there were anxious bulletins going out about the meeting. “If there were trouble . between India and Pakistan, the Soviet might be expected to come down and help Pakistan,” said Sir Robert. “Liaquat Ali Khan went to Moscow a short time ago and is not oil bad terms there Anyway, you can imagine Stalin or Molotov taking advantage of the opportunity to put a finger into the troubled waters." Sir Robert said that if India, with its population of 400,000,000, as well as China; with 450,000,000 or 500,000,000, were to go Communist, the rest of the world would be in a “pretty poor position,” However, he felt that the Chinese would not in the long run swallow Marxian Communism, and India could be a great bulwark against it, but apart from the present major division of the area, India faced many other cleavages in the political and philosophic sphere, partly through the grinding out of the existence of the Indian States. The new Constitution launched with such tremendous enthusiasm in India might yet prove to have no stronger foundation than in certain other- Eastern countries which believed they had got what they called freedom.