IMPORTANT STEP TOWARDS WAR OF HARD ATTACK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1942, Page 3

IMPORTANT STEP

TOWARDS WAR OF HARD ATTACK

CREATION OF PACIFIC COUNCIL COMMENT IN UNITED STATES. HOPES OF BRINGING IN RUSSIA. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright NEW YORK, March 31. The “New York Thues” hi a leader says: “If only because of the deep satisfaction with which the news will be received in Australia, the announcement of the creation of a Pacific War Council in 'Washington would be good news. It is no secret that Australians have been dissatisfied with an arrangement which, in effect, made them mendicants at the table of two of the strongest Powers among the United Nations—Britain and America.

“It is no secret, either, that they have felt for some time that the centre of gravity regarding Pacific problems has been shifting away from London, and it must come to rest in Washington. Yesterday’s action meets the wishes of the Australian people on both points. It gives their Government the right to consult as an equal partner with the other Governments particularly interested in the Pacific area regarding all major questions of strategy, the disposal of planes and other equipment. “Seven nations will be represented on the new council, but there is one great ' nation, an immense Pacific Power, missing from the list. That nation is Russia. It is absent today by its own choice. We may hope it will be present before the year is out.” “There are other good reasons for feeling that the establishment of the council is a step in the right direction,” the “New York Times” says: “It will give an assurance to the other partners in this enterprise—China, for example —that they are no longer on the perimeter of the inner consultations, but are squarely in the middle for making decisions.

“It will also strengthen the earlier moves that have been made to achieve a single central strategy for the whole of the Pacific area—which means willingness to subordinate small considerations of national pride to the large consideration of victory and clear-cut agreement as to which outposts must be held at all costs or which can be abandoned temporarily for the sake of shortening the lines of defence, and thereby shifting the tactics of the United Nations as rapidly as possible from a war of mere defence to a war of hard attack.' “The importance of such a central strategy is so great that the only criticism of the new plan is that it does not go far enough, that it does not create a single war council to consider simultaneously the problems and opportunities of both the Pacific and European areas. But for this we can afford to wait, since events themselves are pushing the United Nations naturally and inexorably in this direction.”

WELL PLEASED NEW ZEALAND PREMIER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, March 31. “I am very pleased that the council is now in being, because that is what New Zealand has asked for since the outbreak of war with Japan,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, commenting on the formation of the Pacific War Council. “We have consistently advocated the establishment of such a council to co-ordinate the work of all the Governments involved. Steps have been taken to ensure the closest cooperation between the War Cabinet and the council, also close consultation between the New Zealand defence forces and the, British and United States General Staffs.” Brigadier H. S. Williams had arrived in Washington to be the New Zealand Army representative in the Allied staff conferences, said Mr Fraser.