Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1943. PACIFIC WAR & PEACE PLANS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 December 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1943. PACIFIC WAR & PEACE PLANS.

QN tlie strength not only of what is now said about it officially, but of what is implied and indicated, the results of the historic conference held lately in. Cairo will be welcomed throughout the Allied world, and nowhere more than in the Pacific Dominions of the British Empire. Probably nothing thus far achieved in the organisation of the United Nations is of better promise than the full agreement reached, on behalf of their respective countries, by President .Roosevelt, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Mr Churchill on the military and political measures to be taken against Japan.

It may be assumed that Holland, France and other countries' intimately concerned will concur most heartily in tls expressed determination of the English-speaking powers and China to “persevere in the serious and prolonged operations which are necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan,” and to strip her of all the territories she has taken in this war and in past wars by violence and greed. Of the political clauses, including those providing for the restoration of Formosa, Manchuria and other territories to China and the establishment of an independent Korea, it is to be said that they imply no new territorial acquisition by any nation, but look to the liberation of those peoples on the Asiatic mainland and in Pacific islands who have been enslaved by Japanese violence or greed or were entrusted to the mandatory authority of Japan, in what is now seen, to have been an entirely unwarranted reliance on her good faith.

In accepting a delegated authority over mandated Pacific islands, Japan pledged herself to co-operate with other nations in maintaining the peace of the world. In her hands, these islands have instead been weapons 1 obtained by fraud and used for purposes of criminal, aggression. Plain justice and common sense demand that Japanese control over these islands, as well as over territories stolen, .from other nations, should be ended finallv and decisively.

The policy of retribution and redress decided upon at Cairo does not mean that easy days of assured security will open in the Pacific as soon as Japan has been brought to unconditional surrender. To the fact that “serious and prolonged, operations” will be necessary Io bring Japan to unconditional surrender, it has to be added that in the aftermath a powerfid and well-knit international organisation, giving full protection to the weak and. imposing whatever restraints may be required on Japan, will, have to be developed to establish and maintain the conditions of peace am! security envisaged at Cairo. In the creation and operation of that organisation, as well as in the military operations needed to make its creation possible, New Zealand must be prepared to play its part. Nothing, naturally, is being disclosed of the plans for military action against Japan on which agreement was reached at Cairo. It may in all reason be assumed, however, that the conference in North Africa mark’s or heralds a stage at which this action can be extended and expanded on a very considerable scale. It may not be over-optimistic to believe that the Allied leaders ami their delegations would hardly have assembled at Cairo had it not been .felt that the defeat and unconditional surrender of Germany are in sufficiently near prospect to make it worth while to plan definitely and in detail the transfer of fighting power to the Pacific which will then become practicable.

The fact that Marshal Stalin did not attend the Cairo conference presumably means that Russia adheres for the time being to the policy of concentrating undividedly against Germany until that country has been decisively overcome. In this there is probably nothing to awaken disquiet or to justify criticism. In the United States it is held by ah apparently growing; weight of authoritative opinion that air and other bases in Siberia from which to attack Japan will be made available as soon as the Allies are in a position to hold and to make effective use of these bases. That Russia ultimately will have a part to play in a system of collective security in the Pacific obviously is not open to question.