PEACE TREATIES

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 63, 12 September 1945, Page 7

PEACE TREATIES

WORK OF FOREIGN MINISTERS

LONDON, September 11

The broad outline of peace treaties with Italy, Rumania, Hungary, and Finland will be etched by the Big Five, says the Press Association's diplomatic correspondent. The details will be worked out later by deputies whom each has appointed and by the large technical staffs accompanying them, who will remain in London after their principals return to their own countries.

Priority is being given to the peace with Italy, because it is felt she will be assisted in her tasks of reconstruction by a resumption of normal international relations. The chief difficulties- will arise in boundary and frontier problems.

The conclusion of a peace treaty with Finland should not be difficult". There will, however, be powerful arguments among five strong personalities who have not. hitherto worked as a council before the complicated Balkan situation, with its Greek and Yugoslav5 complications, is clarified and treaties are drafted.

The Council at a later stage will prepare a peace settlement for Germany for acceptance by a German Government when one adequate for the purpose is established.

FRENCH VIEW OF EUROPE

The French Foreign Minister, M. Bidault, in an interview in London, declared: "Europe is a unit, and must not be divided." He added that Britain

and France must proceed in harmony and good partnership. A system must not be evolved which would divide Europe.

"The agenda of the Foreign Ministers' meeting does not include the question of Germany, which is of great interest to France, who was not represented at Potsdam," he said. "It is desirable that the question should be examined and settled."

Such discussions might include the appointment of German Under-Secre-taries of State in the various occupation zones, and deal with the status of the left bank of the Rhine, he added. "Food, coal, and transport are the most pressing items for any international agenda," says "The Times" in a leader. "Unless food and the essential consumption goods can be produced in sufficient quantities, unless employment for the urban population can be organised, and unless the vital public services are restored, Germany this winter faces the prospect of famine and probably pestilence on a scale experienced by no European country for several hundred years. "The time has come to arrest the process of destruction and decay and take positive measures to re-establish under Allied supervision those sectors of German economy which are essential to the existence and livelihood of the large industrial population and the maintenance of the European standards of living as a whole. The Foreign Ministers will gain little from the successful handling of other issues if they fail to come to grips with the gravest danger that is at present suspended over Europe." "The Times" considers that Mr. Bevin's special responsibilities during the meeting will be the maintenance of close contact with the Dominions' representatives.