MINUTE SHEET.
Unless the full.text of. the Report when you receive it
FKO.RC
(814) 31567/W
Z200.0CO 1/37 JC&SLtd
Gp644/229
(REOIMINT)
CODE 5-344.
contains more, than the cabled, extracts, it does not appear that the
New Zealand Conference has done much tojXlil&Ax&tj&fytiten the
problem of these. Pacific Islands*      Apparently the relative value
of the islands has not been touched on at all, and only in a
subsidiary way the question of the utilisation of some of them as^oJ ^*
an air route*     The main preoccupation of the Conference appears to
be the possibility that Pan American Airways would use Noumea instead
of Suva,, and/so Fiji will eease to be of value for bargaining purposes.
But the fact remains that apparently Noumea is an alternative and
so the value of Fiji is reduced and'we get back to our original
position that our real bargaining counters are New Zealand and
Australia*      It 'is., of course., true that public opinion might press
the Governments of these countries to grant facilities to an American
company because they want to be. able to utilise the service, but the
fact remains that for some years the Netherlands East Indies service
had to stop at Java because the Australian Government would not grant
it facilities, to land   in Australia .and the public acquiesced.
The valuable part of the report is the insistence on the fact that
the British service should be. inaugurated as quickly as possible*
and I suggest that we might perhaps express our view as to the
importance of this.*-      Otherwise it seems to me the Report leaves
us ouch where, we. were, viz*, if the united States refuse landing
rights in Hawaii,, is the New Zealand Government prepared to terminate
the landing rights of Pan American Airways in New Zealand?