PAVING WAY FOR ANOTHER MEETING

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1945, Page 5

PAVING WAY FOR ANOTHER MEETING

FOREIGN MINISTERS

Leaders Expected To Find Solution N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Oct. 4. Negotiations between the Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, President Truman and Generalissimo Stalin with a view to defining the procedure upon which another meeting of the Foreign Ministers can be held is believed here to be the next move towards a peace settlement following the recent deadlock. Whether such a meeting will consist of representatives of three, five or more nations is an important point to be settled. It is hoped that these negotiations will result in a conference at which draft peace treaties will be drawn up and then placed before the active belligerents in the recent war for general discussion and approval. The official view here is that the breakdown of the discussions by the Foreign Ministers is extremely regrettable, but not disastrous. Wellinformed circle;! dismiss instantly the idea that tbs deadlock on what is more or less a technical point will result in no further meetings of the Foreign Ministers and a gradual drifting away to the signing of private treaties, coagulating into blocs and spheres of influence. If they are optimistic about anything at the moment, it is that the leaders of the Big Three nations will find a solution. Public Now Cynical The effect of the deadlock on the public, however, has been to produce a mood of irritable cynicism, for the average man and woman here had come to believe in the theory that the United Nations were moving forward to a friendlier world based on the mutual sufferings „of recent years, and, in any case, necessitated by the arrival of the atomic bomb. Th.at technicalities should cause the breakdown of the first real attempt to outline the peace treaties and that there are many indications o. international suspicion. power politics and blocs and all the atmosphere that leads to war has been more than a sharp disappointment. The public, of course, was almost completely unprepared for disagreement and deadlock among the Big Powers at this meeting, which has tended to increase the disillusionment.