PEACE-MAKING BY GREAT POWERS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24867, 6 May 1946, Page 5

PEACE-MAKING BY GREAT POWERS

Dominion Ministers Dissatisfied - “BEHIND CLOSED DOORS” (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, May 5. “Among the Dominion Ministers in London there is growing dissatisfaction over the trend of the Foreign Ministers’ conference in Paris,” says the Parliamentary correspondent of the “Observer.” “They feel that peace-making is not a matter to be handled behind closed doors by a few big Powers, and that all the countries which fought for victory should have a voice in the proceedings before hard and fast settlements and bargains are made.

‘Dr. H. V. Evatt, Australia’s Minister for External Affairs, was chief spokesman for this view last autumn. The main point seemed won when at their Moscow meeting the Foreign Ministers of the Big Three agreed that the peace treaties should be submitted in draft to a full Peace Conference of all belligerents to be held in Paris this month. The Dominion representatives now fear that this arrangement may be abandoned. “If, through failure of the Foreign Ministers to agree, the Peace Conference is indefinitely postponed, it will mean that unjust, grievance-breeding de facto settlements will be left to remain in force without the smaller countries having had a chance to influence them.

Dr. Evatt’s view is that a breakdown of the Foreign Ministers’ conference should be taken, not as a reason for postponing the Peace Conference, but as a reason for summoning it immediately. He believes there would be a much better prospect of overcoming the obstacles if the proceedings were moved to a wider stage where the pressure of public opinion could be brought to bear on them and where countries outside the Big Power ring could speak for the wider interests of mankind.”