Canberra, 29 December 1954
You will no doubt have noticed the passage in Crocker’s despatch No. 23 of 6th December (‘Indo-Australian Relations’)1 on the Colombo Plan, as follows:—
‘Second, our efforts at a good-neighbour policy with South and South-East Asia are bearing some fruit in India. Thus the Colombo Plan, though it does not get the publicity we had expected—we have reason for believing that the Indian Government secretly discourages publicity about foreign aid in all forms, including the Colombo Plan—gets some recognition, and I think it gets as much, or nearly as much, as the very much bigger U.S. Aid. The best publicity it gets, however, and the most effective for promoting good relations between Australia and India, comes not from the Governments but from individual Indian students who have gone to Australia. They have been surprised and gratified by the friendly reception they have met with there. Their gratification is the greater because they go half expecting to encounter something in the form of a colour bar’.
[NAA:A10299, C15]
1 For full despatch see NAA: A 10299, C21.