Skip to main content

Historical documents

307 Burton to Officer

Cablegram 115 CANBERRA, 1 September 1947

IMMEDIATE PERSONAL

Minister leaves 4th (September) for New York. He is candidate for
Assembly President. Assembly Session will be [most] [1] difficult
one and you will agree that no [one] is better placed than
Minister to assist [deliberations] and endeavour to maintain
balanced debates.

2. I think you could assist our relations with the Dutch greatly
by a full and frank talk with the Foreign Minister saying that we
consider voluntary decision to agree to ... Security Council's
suggestion of [commission of] three to be a wise one; that we
shall do our best to assist in a final and satisfactory
settlement; that our motives all through have been to avoid bitter
public discussion and we believe we have succeeded and that Dutch
position has improved as a result of our efforts; and that it
would be a great pity if Indonesian matters in any way prevented
Australia and the Netherlands working together on [United] Nations
matters.

3. One clear demonstration of our continued cordial relations
would be the ratification of the South Seas Commission Agreement.

[2] Another, which would be regarded particularly in New York as a
tribute to the spirit of the Netherlands in relation to the United
Nations, would be outspoken support for the Minister as President
of Assembly.

4. I have not discussed this with the Minister but I feel
confident that this is something you could do with great benefit
to Australian-Dutch relations and to the United Nations faced now
with most critical problems.

1 Words in square brackets (missing in the cablegram received at
the Legation in The Hague) have been inserted from a draft copy of
the cablegram on file AA:A1838/274, 854/10/4, iii.

2 An agreement establishing the South Pacific Commission had been
signed in Canberra on 6 February, and ratified within a few weeks
by the governments of Australia, New Zealand and the United
Kingdom. For reasons which were given as procedural, the
governments of the United States, France and the Netherlands were
unable to ratify the agreement before 1948. It came into force
formally on 29 July 1948 following ratification by the
Netherlands. For documents relating to this issue see Volume XII.


[AA:A8108, 221/4/1, i]
Last Updated: 11 September 2013
Back to top