Cablegram 4 COLOMBO, 5 January 1949, 4.15 p.m.
IMMEDIATE CONFIDENTIAL
INDONESIA
Reference my telegram 3. [1]
1. United Kingdom Office Colombo have not yet received the views of their Government but expect advice shortly. They hold the opinion with which we agree that the Ceylon Government are playing for time and will consider most carefully before taking decision and they feel also that Ceylon will be influenced by the United Kingdom Government’s view.
2. On the other hand ‘Daily News’ editorial supports the idea of the Conference and assumes that Ceylon will accept Nehru’s invitation and all press opinion here is strong in the denunciation of the ‘naked and unabashed aggression by the Dutch in Indonesia’ and accuse the Western Democracies of being ‘content to pay lip service to the cause of freedom in the East’. This seems NOT to include Australia as the editorial mentioned above said ‘a number of Asian countries including Australia, Egypt and China are reported to have accepted the invitation’.
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1 Dispatched on 4 January, it concerned immigration matters.
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[AA : A1838, 854/10/4/5]