Cablegram 22 CANBERRA, 16 January 1949, 5.35 p.m.
IMMEDIATE CONFIDENTIAL
You will have seen telegrams UN24 and 25 from New York. [1] Glad of your urgent comments.
Main objection to United States draft resolution appears to be instruction to parties to resume negotiations, which, as we pointed out to Hood on Friday, will simply bring matters back to where they were before police action and enable Dutch pressure to continue on Republic for another three months at least. On the other hand it seems to me that if Security Council itself is to lay down terms of settlement covering all matters in dispute it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Council to draw up hurriedly a satisfactory and comprehensive settlement for inclusion in pending resolution. One solution might be for Council to give its Commission three weeks in which to draw up technical details of a just and workable settlement (working by majority vote and consulting parties as necessary) for presentation to Security Council, which could then endorse and promulgate it.
I am going down to Melbourne to-night with latest telegrams and in case I am needed tomorrow. Understand Minister has an engagement on Tuesday and may after all fly to Sydney on Wednesday, but this is still undetermined.
You will note that we passed on Critchley’s eyewitness reports [2] from Batavia to New York and that Hood made use of them. I have telegraphed Critchley about distribution of supplies.
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1 Documents 86 and 87.
2 Document 70.
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[AA : A1838, 403/3/1/1, xx]