Cablegram, Canberra, 12 July 1951
4119. EMERGENCY SECRET
Pacific Security Arrangements.
Your telegram 3796.[1] Please inform United Kingdom Government as follows:-
(a) Australia entirely agrees with the principle the Council must be authorised to maintain consultative relationships with the United Kingdom.
(b) This is the interpretation which we place upon the text of Article VIII transmitted in our telegram 4103 and which we are communicating urgently to Washington.
(c) Any advices which we have received from Washington as to the interpretation which the United States places upon above text support our own interpretation. New Zealand informs us that advice received by New Zealand from Washington as the American interpretation is along the same lines as our own.
(d) In any event, to avoid any possibility of doubt Spender is being asked to inform United States that we accept new text of Article VIII on the clear understanding that above is so. See (a) and (b). We understand that New Zealand will similarly instruct its representative in Washington.
2. As New Zealand has informed us that it too, in all circumstances, agrees with the Australian view that the text of Article VII and VIII transmitted in our telegram 4103 is acceptable, Spender is authorised by this telegram to inform United States that Australia is prepared to initial the Treaty immediately, on the clear understanding as to the correct interpretation of Article VIII mentioned in (a) and (b) above.
_1 11 July. It reported that McCarthy had discussed Cablegram 4103 (11 July) from Canberra, a cablegram conveying the substance of Document 99, and note 1 to Document 100, with UK officials ‘whose only comment was that they assumed that despite the insertion of the words ‘in the Pacific Area’in article 8 the United Kingdom would still be regarded as being among the states with whom Council is authorised to maintain a consultative relationship. They stressed that great difficulties would arise if it were held to exclude the United Kingdom’.
_
[NAA : A1838, 532/11, iv]