Alliance With United States Suggested

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 16, 6 November 1950, Page 4

Alliance With United States Suggested

The Lord Mayor of Sydney considers that Australia and New Zealand should form an alliance with the United States to maintain the security of the Pacific without weakening ties with Britain. The truth is that there is evidence in Australia that a number of people woke up to the facts of life and death regarding America and the Pacific during the last war. It was to America that Australians then had to look. The Australian Prime Minister in fact is said to have appealed to Roosevelt for help at that time.

It was the Coral Sea victory which saved Australia and America. Although a number of British and other Allied vessels took part in that battle it was accepted as an American victory. Events in India and elsewhere have caused some people to reconsider their whole outlook in the face of post-war facts. It would be absurd to disguise the fact that many Empire-minded communities were hit rather hard by the British Government’s attitude towards Empire matters since the war. A sign of the times so far as Australia was concerned occurred at the United Nations conference when Australia took an attitude over the matter of small communities not entirely eye to eye with official British views. Later, the Australian Minister of External Affairs refused to recognise the Communist regime in China in spite of the fact that the British Government had recognised it. Later still Australia asked the United States for more co-operation between the two countries.

These may be straws in the wind but they are worthy of careful thought by. New Zealanders who one day will find themselves at the cross-roads.