PEACE TERMS OPPOSED

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26515, 1 September 1951, Page 7

PEACE TERMS OPPOSED

Vatican .View Of Treaty (Rec. 7 p.m.) NEW YORK Aug. 30. The Vatican has indicated its disapproval of the basic premises and several specific clauses of the BritishAmerican draft peace treaty for Japan, according to the Rome correspondent of the “New York Times.” The Vatican views the draft treaty as inconsistent with the social and ethical principles of the Roman Catholic Church the correspondent says. Among the clauses which the Vatican is reported to oppose is that concerning the status of the Ryukyu and Bonin islands.

The correspondent says that the Vatican's views, which are reflected in the report of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Catholic Faith are that although it might be necessary for the United States to have military bases in the Ryukyu and Bonin islands, they should not be detached economically from Japan. The report said that the foreign Roman Catholics in Japan felt that to take even the meagre economic resources of those islands and place them under American control would be like "allowing a rich man to encroach on the miserable belongings of a poor labourer and would be a blot on the fair name of America.”

The Vatican’s misgivings over the treaty are one reason for the presence in the United States of Monsignor Giovanni Batista Montini, substitute Secretary of State, and one of the Pope’s closest advisers, says the correspondent.

A State Department spokesman in Washington said to-day that the department had received no complaint from the Vatican about the Japanese peace treaty. The department announced that 49 nations, in addition to the United States* and Japan, had accepted Invitations to the treaty conference.