Dominions’ Part In Defence Plans Of Commonwealth

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 March 1949, Page 5

Dominions’ Part In Defence Plans Of Commonwealth

LONDON, March 28 (Recd. 8.5 pm). - —Speculation about regional pacts in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, arising out of the North Atlantic Pact, are discussed by “The Economist.” A movement of ideas is under way, ft says, which must profoundly influence the strategic, even perhaps the constitutional, arrangements of the British Commonwealth.

Regional defence and consultation are no novelty for the Dominions, it continues, but what is new, indeed revolutionary, is the fact that Canada has taken a leading part in working out a document so binding and formal as the North Atlantic Pact. “It is obvious that the signing of the Pact on April 4 will be a turning point in the history of the British Commonwealth,” it says. “For Canada has been led by its common strategic interest with the United States to undertake, at the side of Britain, peacetime commitments in Europe which are without precedent In the history of the Dominions. “Much in Commonwealth policy that had hitherto been cautious, implicit and informal has become, in the Canadian policy, bold, explicit and formal. Such a development and the world situation that hia brought it about, call for fresh consultations between Mr. Attlee and his Dominion colleagues,” says “The Economist.-

It observes that one lesson of the Japanese war was that the security of the Pacific Dominions depends henceforward on close Anglo-American cooperation. What was once a distinctive Canadian attitude to the future of Anglo-American relations is becoming the dominant attitude of the Commonwealth as a whole. Before the war, it continues, the oustanding feature of the Dominion’s foreign policies was reluctance to assume specific obligations, above all in Europe. But Canada’s implicit support for the Western Union and its explicit participation in the Atlantic Pact, now involve it in clearly defined commitments In relation to Europe. “The Economist” endorses Mr. St. Laurent’s comment. “We must, at all costs, avoid a fatal repetition of the history of pre-war years when the Nazi aggressor picked off his victims one by one. Such a process does not end at the Atlantic.” It does not end at the Pacific or the Himalayas, adds “The Economist,” anj asks: How far are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Inda and Pakistan likely to modify a reluctance, never so pronounced in the Pacific as in North America, to accept specific defence commitments? It adds that in principle Australia and New Zealand would almost certainly welcome a Pacific Fact, but they recognise that the time to negotiate it may not come till Far Eastern Horizon is clear. “None doubts their awareness of the need of co-operation for defence in the East or in the West.”

In general, it says, the Commonwealth countries may be divided into Canada, Australia and New Zealand on the one hand—which positively welcome closer Anglo-American cooperation—and those on the other hand, like South Africa and India, which acknowledge its necessity with a greater or a lesser degree of reluctance. Though it suggests that Canada has overhauled and passed the other Dominions in readiness to assume a proportionate share of obligations as a “middle power,” it thinks that Australian initiative in Pacific, Indian leadership in Southern Asia and South African growing interest in the territories north of the Limpopo, all suggest that other members of th? Commonwealth are likely to undertake ever-increasing regional responsibilities. Co-ordination of regional plans and expanding responsibilities in other directions, “The Economist” thinks, may well confront the Commonwealth with major problems when its Prime Ministers meet next month. —Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.