COMMENTATORS’ VIEWS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 18, 16 October 1943, Page 5

COMMENTATORS’ VIEWS

Important Role Of Asia (By Telegraph.—-Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Speeinl Australian Correspondent.) (Received October 15, 11 p.m.) SYDNEY, October 15. Commentators here unanimously poiut out that Asia must remain a great question mark oyer the future of Australia and New Zealand. The Sydney “Sun” today in an editirial comments: “What happens in Asia, the crowded. house of half the human race is, as this war has shoown us, suddenly and enormously capable of altering our customs and way of life. The United States has awakened to the vital nature of foreign policy in thte Pacific, and is already planning her future defence. We must do the same. We cannot live apart from the gales that shako the world. In the past, owing to the protection of the British Navy and the unquestioned status of the white man in acquiescent Asia, we were indeed in that happy position. But two world wars have altered the world in economics, psychology and the balance of power and rapid communication has completetdt the transformation. Our old isolationism is futile. Claims of Pacific security in future will not be met by anything short of our full participation in the measures taken to assure that henceforth this great ocean shall bo true to its noble name.”

Warning that in another Pacific war Australia and New Zealand would be battle grounds, the Sydney “Daily Tele-, graph” urges co-operation to lift the 1,000,000,000 Asiatic people out of poverty and enslavement. No imperialist machine could indefinitely hold down mid humiliate such a vast, concourse. Wide tribute was paid to Dr. Evatt’s speech, which the “Daily Telegraph” calls “a notable contribution to adult outlook of this country.”