Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1944. SECURITY AND SOVEREIGNTY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1944, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1944. SECURITY AND SOVEREIGNTY.

TTNEASY fears are being expressed in some quarters as to I Im U extent to which the adoption of interna I iomd measures to safe<>Tiard peace in the post-war world may impair national sovereignty. Keeently, For instance, the relinng Goverinn- ol New Caledonia (JI. Laigret) said Hud io tlint I'rencli colony coincided with views publicly'expressed by and ?J, CV \ Zealand Ministers, including Mr. Nash, namely, that the U Nations should come to a mutual Pacific defence agicemenl which would not involve any abandonment of national sovcieignty over bases. In this matter it seems necessary to draw a distinction between domination by any nation oi< limited group ol .nations—the sot I of thing suggested in some more or less irresponsible expressions of individual .American- opinion that the United Stales shoui acquire bases in various foreign; lerrifories-and the establish-. menl- of an international organisation m which nations/would mutually pool, their efforts and resources for thd maintenance of peace. This last certainly is desirable—in laet it seems Io offer the onlv hope of making peace secure in the post-war world—but it is evidently not to be reconciled with the maintenance by the contracting parlies of a perfectly intact and isolated sovereignty. _ . Under an arrangement of the kind, in the 1 acibc and e s where strategic bases of necessity would be placed freely at the disposal of an international authority on which all the nations concerned ■would be represented. This would entail an a ian donment of national sovereignty over bases.” The. arrangement would be worthless if it did not provide for an unlettered use of the bases by the international authority as occasion might demand. The true position, however, would be not so much a resignation as a pooling of sovereignty by the individual mil ions entering into the arrangement. . In action on these lines, great-as well as small nations would in. some degree concede a measure of sovereign freedom. Instead of retaining an entirely free hand in affairs 01. foreign policy and defence, even the greatest nations concerned would commit themselves, with others, to a common policy, ami, if. necessary, to common, action directed to upholding peace.