JUGOSLAVS’ CLAIMS ON AUSTRIA

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25091, 24 January 1947, Page 7

JUGOSLAVS’ CLAIMS ON AUSTRIA

(Rec. 11.45 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 22. Britain’s delegate (Lord Hood) at the meeting to-day of the Foreign Ministers’ deputies, challenged one of the grounds upon which Jugoslavia is claiming the union of Slovene Carinthia and the Slovene areas of Styria with Jugoslavia. Lord Hood said that Jugoslavia’s delegate (Dr. Vilfan) estimated the size of the Slovene minority in Austria on the basis of the census taken in 1846, which estimated that there were between 120,000 and 140,000 Slovenes in Styria and Carinthia. Records more than 100 years old could not be the basis for' a future settlement. He suggested that the census taken in 1910 should be used. Dr. Vilfan refused to admit that the later census was preferable because the intensive progress of Germanisation had affected its reliability. Dr. Vilfan claimed that the Paris Reparations Conference of 1945 failed to take into account Austria’s responsibility for German war damage to Jugoslavia which, in the north Slo-

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vene areas annexed to Austria. Styria : and Carinthia, amounted to approximately £132,000.000. These losses were presented as the basis on which i Austrian reparation payments should be assessed. Austria became a component of the Nazi war machine as a result of her political traditions and throughout the war remained faithful > to her age-long role In the vanguard of German imperialism. Dr. Vilfan claimed that Austrian denazification had hardly begun and that the creation of armed forces and i quasi-military organisations there must lead to serious consequences. Supporting the claim for the incori poration of the Carinthian and Styrian Slovenes, Dr. Vilfan said that the de- * cision of the 1919 conference that the * two provinces should be left wholly to Austria inflicted on Jugoslavia an injustice which foreshadowed Nazism : in Austria. I He agreed, following Lord Hood's * objection, to present further memor- * anda dealing with the census ques- * tions.