PACIFIC PROBLEMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 6, 8 January 1944, Page 3

PACIFIC PROBLEMS

DISCUSSION AT CANBERRA IMPORTANT CONFERENCE EXPECTED (Special Australian Correspondent—N.Z.P.A.) Recd. 7.5 p.m. Sydney, Jan. 7. The pending conference of senior Australian and New Zealand Ministers to be held in Canberra this month is being enthusiastically anticipated by Commonwealth political observers. It 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. A conference agreement or. the practical principles governing the conion security and future development of our two countries is regarded as certain. “Such conferences should be regular and routine affairs," declares the Melbourne Herald. “That they have not been so is a discredit to earlier Governments. If the Pacific war has achieved one good thing it is that it has put an end to the Australian myth ol isolation and forced us not only to know cur neighbours, but to take heed of them.” Post-war policy to guard against future aggression in the Pacific will be a major topic for consideration by the conference. Australia is believed to favour the formation of a Pacific security zone policed by Powers holding Pacific interests. It is suggested that a security zone proposal lor the Pacific could be fitted into a general scheme for ensuring future world peace, which will be formulated by the general peace conference. Under the Pacific security zone proposal the nat.ons whose territorial interests are affected will probably contribute men, money, anda materials for the defence of the area. As New Zealand and Australia are the most likely sufferers from any future aggresison in the Pacific, it is accepted here as essential that they reach an agreement on this vital matter before any broader conferences are held involving other Imperial interests or foreign Powers. Considerable interest has been aroused in Australia by the Hon. Walter Nash's suggestion of a Five-Power Federation covering the Pacific islands from the Solomons to Marquesas. Such an Australian-New Zealand zone of security might be our second line of defence to the suggested American belt of bases running across the Pacific from California to China and including Peoews, the Carolines, Marianas, and the Marshall Islands. Many observers believe that Australia and New Zealand will offer whole-heart-ed support to this reported Cairo conference plan of a broad American-held belt between them and Japan. More than concerning itself with actual defence matters the pending meeting of Australian and New Zealand Ministers is also regarded here as the first important step in the broader policy of regional co-operation. Following the New Zealand-Australia meeting the Commonwealth proposes to call a conference of all the Powers concerned in the South-west Pacific. These are expected to include the United States, Britain, France, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Portugal.

Other subjects to be considered at the Australia-New Zealand Ministerial talks may include the complex problem of immigration, particularly ot coloured imigration. “Australians believe it will be essential that both Dominions be free to develop as great white countries and bastions of British civilisation in the Southern Pacific," sacs the Sydney Daily Mirror editorially. “To de this they must have the strength that comes from numbers ot people, from high standards of living, and from expanding industrial economy.'’

Viewing closer Australia-New Zealand co-operation as a preliminary to the closest post-war relations with the greatly widened Commonwealth and international relations and emphasising particularly the need for the United States, the Sydney Herald today says editorially: “It is not alone for security’s sake that we snould seek to work in closer association as a regular practice. Beyond security hopes for the development of a richer life in the post-war world demand the firmest basis of international understanding, and such understanding, unless continually cultivated, is likely to be as impermanent as any old-time treaty of alliance and friendship. Australia and New Zealand may well I prove powerful influences in bringing about in the wider world that political co-operation between Britain and the United States, which purely European [interests have in the past failed to achieve.”