URGENCY OF ISSUES AT STAKE.

Chronicle (Levin), 8 June 1948, Page 5

URGENCY OF ISSUES AT STAKE.

Received Alonday, 7 p.m. LONDON, June 7. ■ Little news is available on deeisive plans for the meeting of Commonweaitn Prime Ministers bnt suggestions haye Deen niade that Mr. Dalton may ,De placed . in charge of arrangements Hy i Mr. Attlee. Oue theory is that two : conferences might be held • — firstly, : a brief discussion by the Prime Ministers 011 the immediate issue of a Wes- • tern Union followed by another and more elaborately prepared meeting ro diseuss constitutional problems raised by post-war deyelopments in the Commonwealth, particularly in India and Pakistan. Some interesting comments on Com111011 wealth politics are made by tlie .Weekly journal New Statesman and Nation, in a leading article. It declares that the project of a • conference is a helated victory for the informed section of public opinion, After several opportune occasions for h c onference since the war, had eome and- gone, it began to iook as if such, an institution was defuuct. It continues: "It was not until the project of a Western Cnion . brought certain latent Commonwealth problems to a head, tliat opinion in Britain and some of the Dominions became vocal and the Government felt themselves obliged to respond. Powerful , antagonists to such a conference," the Journal declares, ' ' were officials who dislike big Ministerial gatherings. Oflicial inertia has been a valuable ally of political onjections in some of the Dominions. " In this-, respect it suggests that bota Canada.and South ' Afriea has been eaution$. • Dr. "Evatt seemed feadier to have tne Commonwealth conform to Australian policy than Australia,' conform to ComJ* monwealth policy, and accordingly has been well content to rest upon such de' vices as the Australia-New Zealana agreement and the Canberra Conference on Paciflcv issues on which Australia could exercise a natural regionaHparamountcy. New Zealand has not exgrted mucn influence one wav or the other. India and Pakistan have been preoecupied with their own difficulties. Statesmanship of the flgst order wiii be required to overcome, such inhi'bxtions, the New Statesman and Nation continues, and on the side of statesmanship will he the urgency of the issues that have to be settled. Commonwealth policy, it declares, if it is to stay in the same race with European policy, has to run fast to keep up. It is already a lap behind. "Basieallv, the problem is one rather for the Dominions than for Britain," it says. "We, in these islands, cannot eseape belonging to Europe. We have neither. the predominant strength nor geographieal isolation to reiu'ain outside the Western European concert . . . for us there really is no choice, The choice, if it exists, is oue rathdr for the Dominions to make. Are they -prepared to eome with us into the circle of Western Powers, reeognising that a fundamentaL-.interest as well as Imperial ties ebnimjt them any wav to thp rmnse'quenceS'bfiwhat transpires m 'Eui'ope i,h f'utur.e, just as it .did 'in 1 9 1 4 an'd' 19"3i9? Or will they take the chance ou being able to deeide • in time ana effectively when a still more critical nioment comes later — reeognising that such a policy weakens the Common-. wealth in the same measure as it eu-. larged their own apparent independence? Statesmanship niajr suggest one answerj national xiolitics may dietate another. " It is long odds that the Commonwealth Conference, in its public projimmcements, will seek some formula which will avoid presentijig the issue in its naked simplicity. But Ministers and their advisers cannot evade decisions on many points where the presure of eyents will deeide for them ii they do not deeide for themselves. "The problem of Commonwealth defence is rapidly approaching such a crisis. Important decisions have to be taken now and they must depend to some extent on the contribution the Dominions are ready to make to the general security. Similarly decisions about trade -and finance cannot indefinitely be postponed or camouflaged; npr can those op .constitutional pronlems which involve the whole trend oi the Commonwealth changing into an . association 'of independent States owing no common allegiance."