PACIFIC DEFENCE PACT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27499, 20 September 1950, Page 7

PACIFIC DEFENCE PACT

Australian Overtures To United States From C. R. Mentiplay, NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 9.50 p.m. SYDNEY, Sept. 19. The implementation of a defence pact between the free countries of the Pacific area is uppermost in the minds of many Australians today. The efforts of the External Affairs Minister, Mr P. C. Spender, to interest the United States in the proposition are being watched extremely closely from here, and so far there has been no adverse comment on the proposal.

The Australian press has noted with appreciation the fact that New Zealand is supporting the Spender Plan. Several important factors, however, affect Australia’s general attitude to any proposal involving defence on a Pacific-wide basis. Under the Defence Act, Australia cannot conscript troops for service outside her own territory. During the last war this was stretched to allow conscripted military troops to take part in the New Guinea campaign, but the entire Defence Act would have to be redrafted to allow the recruiting on an Australian force to serve anywhere in the Pacific or to be held as part of an international standing force for emergency service. To Australians, who have never favoured conscription in any form and a strong minority of whom are opposed even to the implementation of the national service scheme, am terference with th<~ r> m.-.r. it stands would constitute a major political issue.

The second factor is Australia’s hatred and distrust of the Japanese. During the last wa. many Australian servicement and women were massacred on island beaches or died cn such infamous projects as the BurmaSiam railway. The Australians have rever forgotten these and other instances of Japanese militarism. Commenting on the statement by an unnamed American official that United States plans for a peace treaty with Japan contemplated no limit on the right of the Japanese to rearm, Mr Spender has reiterated the Australian point of view on the necessity for a safeguard against the resurgence of Japan as a military power. The official American attitude is that “ no economic or other artificial restrictions” should be placed on Japan, whose importance as a counter-weight to the growth of Communist power in Asia has become predominant in American eyes.