CANADA: Solo in Seoul

Canada's globe-circling Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, scheduled to return to Ottawa this week, paused in Seoul last week and held a press conference. Nodding his grey head, he said: "Some day we are going to have to be realistic . . . We are going to have to admit that the present government of China is the government the people want."

Next day, papers and politicians in his native Quebec told the Prime Minister the political score. Editorialized L'Action Catholique: "It will always be too soon to recognize Communist China." The Montreal Gazette pointed out that "Canada will not fall into the error of suggesting that the Communist government of China represents a free choice of the people."

Learning by cable of the flap that his statement had created at home, St. Laurent tried to cool matters off at a Tokyo press conference. He explained that he had not meant to imply that the Chinese people had freely chosen the present Communist government. All he had in mind in discussing future diplomatic dealings with Red China was some arrangement to enable representatives of the West to deal directly with the Communist regime on matters affecting China.