The Wanganui Chronicle. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1950. MR. DOIDGE RETURNS

Wanganui Chronicle, 1 November 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1950. MR. DOIDGE RETURNS

AFTER an absence of only eight weeks, compared with Mr. Nash’s world jaunt of as many months and more. Mr. Doidge returns to New Zealand and immediately presents an account of his stewardship. The promptness of this report is one of its assuring features. Here is a Minister of Foreign Affairs who is prepared to make a public statement on what he has achieved and to allow the publie to judge whether the visit to the United Kingdom and the United States was worth while. The visit was evidently a very crowded adventure with no spare time available for what might be termed side shows. Mr. Doidge was able to become fully seized of the essentials of the problems of current international affairs. That he is able to strike a hopeful note concerning the immediate future is to the good. He is cautious enough, however, to emphasise that this should not engender a false sense of security. There is enough justification and to spare for this cautious note. It may be that the capitalist lion and the communist lamb will be able to lie down together, but at the moment the communist element in the world shows no signs of becoming lamblike. This element doesn’t even appear to be ■willing to act like a lion, preferring 1o behave more like a wolf than any other marauder. By striking suddenly at a vulnerable and vital point and making the attack in the dark the Communist technique has been successful only too often and it is to be expected that it will be resorted to as soon as a new victim is within sight. Korea was a miscalculation that nearly came off. But the failure in Korea will not result in a spiritual conversion of the Kremlin. That this is so is to be seen by the situation in the Balkans where Mashal Tito continues to complain of the creating of frontier incidents and Ihe murder of his frontier guards by- the satellite countries of Moscow.

But neither Korea nor Yugoslavia are to be regarded as the only danger points in the world today. The Chinese are moving into the mountain fastnesses of Tibet, it is claimed, in order to forestall the Russians. This will give India cause for concern and Pakistan will also be uneasy. The Kashmir dispute remains insoluble by the Pacific East, while Indonesia demands the “return” of Dutch New Guinea and in this Pundit Nehru seems to be willing to add fuel to the fire. This trail of fire cannot be ignored by the people of Australia and New Zealand, for the Indonesians will fiAd little mental difficulty in extending the Indonesia for Indonesians thesis into Papua for the Papuans, with the exception of Fiji where an already Indian nationalist minded population is in numerical superiority over the native race. The need for careful handling in the Middle East situation is apparent to all. There a King has been given notice that the people of Egypt may require him to absent himself from the country and the treaty with the United Kingdom is unilaterally abrogated. In such a situation the unity of the Western nations becomes a matter of overall importance and it is here that the visit of Mr. Doidge to London and Washington will be of value. It is not that New Zealand is of tremendous importance in the councils of the nations, but it is important from the standpoint of this country that its place in the scheme of things be rightly presented and its value in any effort at global defence, both economically and strategically, be appropriately stressed. In this Mr. Doidge is fully qualified for the task.