Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1943. POST-WAR SECURITY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 March 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1943. POST-WAR SECURITY.

JN saying that negotiations should start now for the acquisition of overseas bases which the United States considered would be necessary after the war, and in citing as an example in point the island of Upolo, in Western Samoa —a territory held by New Zealand under mandate from the League of Nations the American Secretary for the Navy, Colonel Knox, avowedly was expressing an opinion and not making a declaration of policy on behalf of the United States Government. The existing Potion. has been made fully clear by the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) in comments on the statement attributed to Colonel Knox. Mr Fraser said that no negotiations had taken place concerning the post-war provision of permanent American bases in the Pacific, and further that, until the League ot Nations “is reconstituted or its authority is vested in some similar international organisation, New Zealand is not in a position to enter into discussions as to the disposition of its mandated territory.” . Mr Fraser’s statement is far front being of only negative significance. It no doubt implies that in the event of the constitution of an effective international organisation, including the United States in its membership, no difficulty would be likely to arise in regard to the use and control of strategic bases in the Pacific. Broad-based international action seems to be the only hopeful method of establishing security and safeguarding peace in the Pacific and in other parts of the woild when the war comes to an end. At the moment, the position and outlook oh this side of the world are complicated by the fact that the Soviet Union, though it is concerned very vitally in the question of future secuiity in the Pacific, is not at war with Japan. With the countlies of the British Commonwealth of Nations, China, and the Netherlands East Indies, Russia, however, evidently is entitled to a voice and part in establishing that security. Statements like l that credited to Colonel Knox are open to criticism as representing too narrow an approach to the problem of establishing and safeguarding post-war security. It is by a continuation and extension of the existing co-operation of the United Nations, if at all, that’ a reign of peace and law will be opened in the world. As the British Home Secretary (Mi Herbert Morrison) declared the other day, the immediate postwar task will be to disarm the aggressor nations and to. safeguard future peace. This, he added, might be taken, to imply the creation in due time of “a genuinely representative world political association.” Nothing less than this, and certainly no mere acquisition by an individual nation of strategic bases, will suffice to make an end of the international anarchy out of which the last war and the present war arose.