ISOLATE AUSTRALIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27389, 15 May 1950, Page 5

ISOLATE AUSTRALIA

Communist Strategy In South-east Asia BLUNT WARNING TO CABINET New Zealand Press Association—Copyright Rec. 7.50 p.m. SYDNEY, May 14. Sunday papers carry a report that the Commonwealth Government has been warned by the British Commissionergeneral for South-east Asia, Mr Malcolm MacDonald, that South-east Asian Communists plan to isolate Australia, possibly within six months. The Sunday Sun says: “Mr MacDonald gave details of Communist strategy to take over South-east Asia as far south as Indonesia. He warned Cabinet that a shooting war is likely to start throughout Southeast Asia within six months and that if the Communists succeed in sweeping through Indonesia, Australia will be in an almost untenable position as a democracy isolated in a sea of Communism. “It is understood that Cabinet has been profoundly impressed and that a Cabinet meeting has been called to discuss the situation. One result expected is that tjiere will be a Cabinet direction ordering a speed-up of all defence works.”

The Sunday Herald quotes Colonel H. T. Allan, war-time commander of a Pacific Islands regiment, as saying that in six months New Guinea could easily become a second Malaya, with armed conflict between subversive Communist guerrillas and the white planters. “The Minister for External Affairs and Territories, Mr P. C. Spender, has agreed with Colonel Allan that security in the territory should be tightened up,” adds the Herald. “He said this problem was now receiving official consideration.” Colonel Allan, who is a peace-time planter and who is recognised as an authority on territorial affairs, having lived in New Guinea since 1920, said that the Federal Government should set up a branch of the Federal Security Service in New Guinea and tighten the customs screen on all ports. Subversive activity among the Chinese residents should be looked for and the white residents organised. He said that the New Guinea Chinese had told him they would have to follow the party line because they received most of their commodities from the East. There was nothing to prevent Communist agents coming ashore from Chinese ships, and many whites in New Guinea employed by Commonwealth departments were unsatisfactory types. Interviewed in Sydney, Chaudhry Nazir Ahmed Khan, Minister of Industry in the Pakistan Government, stressed that if the Sydney conference was intended to accomplish anything worthwhile the measures adopted must be quick, immediate, and fairly widespread. He deplored the Ameri-

can approach in the fight against Communism, and said that the United States Government was 'unfortunately all too apt to. consider that a certain number of dollars here and there, according to the apparent weakness of the State concerned, would suffice to enable such States to withstand Communism. It was a mistaken idea that poverty alone made a country susceptible to the advances of Communism. ' The United States Government did not properly comprehend that Islam constituted an impassable barrier to Communism because the Moslem religion incorporated the principles of private ownership and private enterprise. In a London message The Times comments: “ The strong note of caution in many British Ministerial remarks on the Commonwealth meeting opening in Sydney on .Monday is all to the good up to a point. Nothing would be worse than to raise false hopes of a vast flow of help that could speedily build up the prosperity of the threatened countries. Yet the little that has been said in this country has given the impression that almost nothing at all can come from the meeting; that South-east Asia must rely largely on American help; and that in any case the difficulties are enormous. “The truth is that it is much too early to rely on American help in this region. It is fair to Assume that the United States would be interested only if the Commonwealth countries show first that they are facing risks and doing their best to afford what help they can. Even then, American help cannot be taken as certain. It is far better at this stage to regard the Sydney meeting purely as a Commonwealth meeting. The work of supporting economies in South-east Asia is bound to be slow and unspectacular. At times it must take second place to the needs of military defence, but unless the economies are supported military defence alone will not save the countries from Communist undermining tactics.”