PACIFIC BASES

Reference United Kingdom telegram of 2nd August (Canberra 169).

[1] We are prepared to have an exchange of views by telegram in
advance of the Canberra meeting. This could be supplemented by
discussion at Canberra in the event of conflicting view points,
or, if it were agreed that the United Kingdom should make their
proposed approach to the United States, could be in the light of
the United States reactions. We shall not however propose this to
the United Kingdom Government until we have your views upon such a
procedure.

2. The approach to the United States proposed in United Kingdom
telegram of 17th June (Canberra 122) implies the abandonment of
the agreement made at the British Commonwealth meeting in April
1946 that we should work towards a Regional Security arrangement
for the South and South West Pacific area under Article 52 of the
Charter, that we should ask the United States to participate in
such an arrangement and that we should settle the question of
bases as part of the general system. All that remains is the
suggestion that the United States should declare that the security
of the area is a matter of concern to her. This is disappointing
but more than a year has passed without apparently any sign of
interest by the United States in a Regional Agreement for the
South and South West Pacific; indeed the goal set in April 1946
seems further from attainment than ever and in view of the decline
of United States interest in the area (as reflected for instance
in the virtual dropping of their claim to the twenty-odd islands)
we doubt whether they would ever be willing to give a declaration
in the sense proposed by the United Kingdom.

3. We are still anxious, as we were in April 1946, that the United
States should be involved in the defence of our region and that
she should keep up certain bases which would be available to us in
peace or in war though we are still equally unwilling that the
price of this should be the cession of British Commonwealth
Territory or the abandonment of strategic or civil aviation
interests or in the case of Christmas Island neglect of the future
welfare of the natives of the Gilbert and Ellice area. We note
with regret that the United States is not thinking in terms of co-
operation with the British Commonwealth in the Pacific; otherwise
it seems to us she would not ask for the outright cession of three
important islands after it had been made clear that we were
completely willing to discuss co-operative arrangements.

4. In these circumstances we think that the United Kingdom
approach which inter alia rejects outright cession but offers full
co-operation and reciprocity is sound and for our part we are
disposed to agree that it should be tried. More than this we think
we are unlikely to get. In fact we have no confidence that the
United States will either make the declaration or give the staging
rights in the Philippines; though this is no reason for not making
the request. If the United Kingdom were to make the approach she
suggests and then test United States reactions before the Canberra
meeting, we might be in a better position to discuss the matter
realistically on that occasion.