Hull Challenges the ANZAC Pact in a Meeting with Curtin and Dixon

During the Second World War, Australia and New Zealand sought a voice in the Pacific settlement that would follow. Their January 1944 agreement expressed concern that decisions by the largest allies might neglect the region. [3] [1]

Australian minister Owen Dixon accompanied Prime Minister John Curtin to a meeting with Secretary of State Cordell Hull in Washington on 24 April 1944. Hull challenged the agreement Australia and New Zealand had signed in January, particularly its provisions concerning the future of Pacific territories. He objected to discussing territorial settlements while the war was still being fought. [1]

Australia had framed the pact differently. In February, Curtin told the American minister in Canberra that it expressed the two countries' shared security concerns while respecting other governments' rights. He acknowledged that sovereignty over places such as New Caledonia, Timor, and Dutch New Guinea complicated an early regional conference. Hull wanted a general international security system settled before governments created separate regional arrangements. [2] [1]

According to Hull's account of the Washington meeting, Curtin defended cooperation for the welfare of Pacific island peoples and denied having territorial designs. Hull continued to see territorial questions in the pact and asked that the proposed conference be postponed. Curtin indicated agreement with postponement while maintaining that some regional meeting should address social, economic, and political development. [1]

Related Diplomats

1. Owen Dixon [1]
2. Cordell Hull [1]

Related Reading

• Australia and the United States
• Commonwealth of Australia