Queen’s Dominion
October 15, 1951 — The Advertiser
October 15, 1951 — The Advertiser
| The Mossadegh Project | July 28, 2020 |
Lead editorial on Commonwealth unity in The Advertiser (Adelaide, South Australia) newspaper.
• Australian media archive
AUSTRALIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
There is no part of the world, outside our immediate neighborhood, in which Australia has a deeper or more abiding interest than the Middle East. Twice we have contributed notably to its defence from a well-found knowledge or its importance to our own security, and we have recognised, at least implicitly, that we may have to do so again.The time for a positive decision is probably not far off. Although the details of the proposals submitted to Egypt for a Middle East defence pact have not yet been published, they are believed to provide for the inclusion of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as part-members or associates. Our London correspondent understands from this that the three Dominions will be asked to supply a share of the forces which will become responsible for the safety of the Middle East should Egypt agree to the pact.
Australia’s participation would be a logical expression of the concern which every thoughtful person in this country must feel for the preservation of a vital life-line and the security of an area which is of crucial significance for the entire free world.
The forbidding realities of the international situation compel us to recast our traditional ideas of national defence by looking and planning outwards. We have begun to do so in the Far East. We have accepted far-reaching obligations under our mutual security pact with the United States. We are paying part of the price that has to be paid in Korea—and the latest Australian casualty list which we publish this morning is a grim reminder of the measure and the nature of the cost.
We are no more immune from the pressure of events in the Middle East than we are from the turbulences of Asia. If the anti-Western landslide, which, beginning in Persia, has now spread to Egypt and is producing rumblings throughout the whole Arab world, is not halted, the consequences will be driven home to us at one point after another. The proposed defence pact is one means of providing solid ground on which Arab nationalism and the West’s demand for security can be brought together, and it is clearly in Australia’s interest that she should be a part of it.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government is understood to have taken the very desirable step of making it known in London that it fully supports the British refusal to be pushed out of the canal zone. There is no reason to suppose that the British Government looks for more than this and for an assurance of Australia’s willingness to subscribe to the terms of the pact offered to Egypt. Mr. Morrison has said that Britain will not use force to safeguard her rights in the canal zone and the Sudan unless force is used against her. [British Foreign Minister Herbert Morrison] At the same time, the contingency must, of course, be provided against, and the preparations which a readiness to resist force must entail should not be permitted to suffer from any thought that the Dominions, the United States and the free world generally are not in full agreement with her.
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Related links:
West Is Losing In Middle East | Marquis Childs, October 18, 1951
Has Persia won? | The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), July 24, 1952
Mossadeq’s Mistiming | Barrier Daily Truth, December 12, 1951
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