The Press SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1966. Conference At Lagos

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30953, 8 January 1966, Page 12

The Press SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1966. Conference At Lagos

The Government has been wise not to follow the Australian example of refusing to take part in the Commonwealth meeting at Lagos. New Zealand will be represented by the High Commissioner in London, Sir Thomas Macdonald, a man who has been a Minister of External Affairs, and one who in London in recent years has been at the heart of Commonwealth discussions. Many will regret that the Prime Minister, Mr Holyoake, was not able to give the conference the imprimatur of representation by New Zealand at the highest political level. The conference was called by the Nigerian Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, one of the most sensible and moderate of African leaders. His move came shortly after the Organisation of African Unity had announced its December 15 deadline by which Britain was supposed to end the Rhodesian rebellion. Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was clearly anxious to forestall such pointless gestures by Commonwealth nations as the rupture of diplomatic relations with Britain in terms of the O.A.U. resolution: and while he was as determined as any other African leader to ensure the defeat of the Smith regime, he was even more concerned to prevent the Commonwealth from collapsing first.

Perhaps the conference would have been better timed in a month or two, after sanctions have had a chance to bite. But it was no doubt an urgent situation, as he saw it, that moved Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to set an early date; and the level of representation the conference is attracting suggests that something useful may come of it. This, of course, is not the view of the Australian Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, who fears that it will emphasise and exacerbate differences. But Mr Wilson, the British Prime Minister, and Mr Lester Pearson, Prime Minister of the senior Commonwealth nation, are among the Commonwealth leaders prepared to take this risk. It may well be, as substantial opinion in the Commonwealth fears, that the conference will tend to become a cross-examination of the British record. Some delegates might want to use it as a lever to compel Britain to take more drastic measures than it has so far been prepared to contemplate. On the other hand, the conference will give Mr Wilson an opportunity to speak to coloured Commonwealth opinion as frankly as he has spoken to British. He has consistently rejected a military solution in Rhodesia; and no doubt will continue to do so. Mr Wilson might usefully take the opportunity to test Commonwealth opinion (especially African Commonwealth opinion) on transition arrangements in Rhodesia before majority rule.

The full representation at the conference is not known yet. The muster will be a little thin with Sir Robert Menzies abstaining, Mr Shastri and President Ayub Khan probably occupied at Tashkent, and some of those who have broken diplomatic relations with Britain absent. But there should be sufficient Commonwealth statesmen of high level present for a consensus to be found that will impress world opinion, African opinion, and opinion in Rhodesia.