NEARING END

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 160, 19 April 1947, Page 5

NEARING END

FOREIGN MINISTERS' CONFERENCE NEXT TO NOTHING DONE (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) LONDON, April IS. The Moscow correspondent of “The Times” says that most of the delegates now expect that the Foreign Ministers’ conference will end early next week. They also expect it to produce next to nothing except a common resolution to try for agreement next time and, if need be, the time after that. Tito Western delegates chiefly blame the Russians for the present stalemate, because of their refusal to agree to any plan for running Germany as a single economic unit unless their demands for reparations and four-Power control of the Ruhr are met. Mr Ernest Bevin (England) and Mr Cl. C. Marshall (U.S.A.) have been no less rigid in refusing to consider these Soviet demands at present and in rejecting any partial scheme for four-Power control untjil all zones and all industries can he brought into a general scheme. They are not having any interference in their combined zone as long as the eastern zone remain sis si law to itself, and as long as eastern resources are not pooled. Obviously the Soviet Unio'n is not in a strong bargaining position. It needs goods from reparations both in factories and from future German production. P>oth kinds must mainly come from the western zones, and if the Soviet now presses its demands to the extreme it will not fail only to get any promise of goods from future production but lose the opportunity to get deliveries of factories and capital equipment, resumed.

Mr Bevin and Mr Marshall have said that they cannot resume such deliveries until there is agreement on economic unity and on a new level of German industry, because without such agreements it is impossible to say how much plant and equipment the western zones will need to keep to make them self-supporting. Even if the Soviet delegation is aware that the others are in a stronger position in this matter, it certainly does not let that knowledge affect its tactics. It is still pressing its demands with no sign of yielding or compromise. It is probably convinced that the Western Powers sincerely desire an ultimate agreement on making Germany a single State again and that eventually its claims for reparations from future production will be met, at any rate in part. The only question is whether the divisions, in Germany can be prevented from widening in the meantime. Even if there can be no agreement on the sharing of resources among the zones, it is hoped that at the least the four Ministers may agree on a new level for German industry based on a steel production of 10,000.000 tons a year, but even this is far from certain. AUSTRIA’S POSITION f U.S.A. AND RtTSSTA DIFFER (Rec. 10.45) MOSCOW, April IS. Mr G. Marshal (U.S.A.) accused Mr Molotov, in the Foreign Ministers’ Council to-day of trying to make Austria a puppet state, when Mr Molotov rejected an American compromise in the definition of German assets in Austria, which had been the stumblingblock to completing .the Austrian treaty. Mr Marshall’s settlement formula retained American insistence that property, which the Germans acquired in Austria “under stress, duress or force,” should not be considered as assets seizable by the Allies. Earlier,- Herr Gruber, Austrian Foreign Minister, in a statement to the Foreign Ministers, said that Austria would refuse to sign a treaty with the Allies which did not acknowledge the re-establishment of Austrian pre-war frontiers. He added that, unless the Allied occupation ended speedily, it would be a difficult to achieve restoration of Austria’s freedom and independence. He also firmly rejected Yugoslavia’s claim to annex Carint'hia.