Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1944. CO=OPERATION WITH AUSTRALIA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1944, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1944. CO=OPERATION WITH AUSTRALIA.

/ACCORDING to a cablegram from Sydney, the conference ol senior Australian and New Zealand .Ministers to be held m Canberra this month is being enthusiastically anticipated by Commonwealth political observers. The conference, it is at t ec, “is seen as heralding the closest possible liaison between the neighbour Dominions, as well as foreshadowing much wider post-war relations with other Pacific nations.” It would probably be an exaggeration to say that any great enthusiasm .in regard to the coming conference has developed in this country, but it would be strange, if what may well, prove to be, a. momentous meeting were not approved as timely and very necessary by the weight of responsible New Zealand opinion including that of members of our armecl forces, not least, those of them now serving in the Pacific.

We are moving into an era in which every hope of security and of a more spacious life will depend upon a very much closer and more intimate understanding than has hitherto been attained, or indeed sought, with other nations. Faced as we are by that prospect and by the problems it involves, it would be strange if rhe wisdom and necessity of doing everything we can to work out with Australia an identity of aims and policy did not stand out plainly. The identity to be sought of course refers primarily to international affairs and questions in ielation to which we have a vital, common interest, in that the continued existence of the Commonwealth and the Dominion alike may depend on these affairs and questions being handled in the right way.

The quest for common ground in an. approach to the larger aspects of Pacific policy of course need not and most certainly should not imply any subordination of Now Zealand to Australia. The federation project under which New Zealand would have become a State of the Commonwealth—a project favoured years ago by a small but enthusiastic minority in Hus country as wolfas by some people in Australia—is safely dead and buried. Confronted as we are. however, by the necessity of reaching a co-operative understanding on issues of future peace and security with a range of foreign Powers in the I acific, no hopeful outlook would be opened if we found ourselves incapable of arriving at an effective and durable working understanding with the sister Dominion with whom we have so much in common, from which we are separated only by some 1200 miles of sea —a twelve-hour journey by air and "With whose fate, at the largest view, our own so obviously is identified.

There have been some oddly timorous suggestions that we should be wary of seeking such an understanding with Australia because we are in a measure at odds with her on some questions' of trade and economic development. The answer to all such suggestions, if they need an answer, is that co-operation with Australia in all things in which our interests are identified, and particularly in the mutual safeguarding of our future existence and security, will not in the slightest degree hinder a vigilant and enterprising advancement of our legitimate national interests, if need be in rivalry with the Commonwealth. Onlj' a sense of proportion is needed to enable us to put the facts from this standpoint into true perspective.

An overwhelming proportion of New Zealanders may be expected to agree ■with the Australians who believe it to be essential, as the Sydney “Daily Mirror” has said, that both Dominions should be free to develop as great white countries and bastions of British civilisation in the Pacific and hold that: —

To do this they must have the strength that comes from numbers of people, from high standards of living, and from an expanding industrial economy.

There should be no hasty jumping at conclusions as to the lines on which future peace and security in the Pacific will best be safeguarded. Flrm-based international understanding and cooperation, however, evidently are the alternative to international anarchy in the years to come. Australia and New Zealand must be able Io speak and to act in concert if they are to make a useful and positive contribution to the development of the international organisation on which their own continuing security and that of oilier nations depends.