VEIL OF SECRECY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21900, 19 December 1945, Page 5

VEIL OF SECRECY

MOSCOW PARLEYS

SOVIET PAPER’S VIEW

MAJOR POWERS’ RULE (Special Correspondent.) '(10 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 18. Both the British and American delegations have made it clear that the British and American public will , be told the minimum, about the proceedings of the Big Three Foreign Ministers’ Conference in Moscow, reports Reuter. The discussions and the agenda are being kept a strict secret, but there may be occasional official reports. The second meeting of the Foreign Ministers which lasted two hours and 20 minutes, was described as an “exchange of views.” The Moscow periodical New Times, in a leading article broadcast in English by the Moscow radio, said: “To doubt the necessity of the Big Three is to doubt the necessity for stability and co-operation between the Great Powers of the United Nations in the interest of all peace-loving nations, big and small.” Abolition of Sovereignty ■ Referring to the talk of abolition of national sovereignty, the article continued: “To talk about a future Federation of States on these lines is one thing, but to talk of world federation led by British Conservatives and the American Middle West isolationists is .quite another. It should not be forgotten that the lebel of a world federation not infrequently disguises unfounded claims of certain great Powers to a leading role in world affairs. It is significant that they claim to want to perfect the United Nations Charter adopted at San Francisco but their demand in the main is for a Renunciation of the principle of unanimity and the right of veto by the Great Powers constituting the permanent council which were incorporated In the Charter. This principle is being attacked in so frank a form that the ultimate argument is the atomic bomb it cannot be denied has ntrodiiced a new element into the international situation. But is the firm cooperation of the Great Powers less needed under the new conditions, now that we enter an era of universal peace? Is not the proposal to abandon the unanimity of the Great Powers in the council nothing but a proposal to abandon co-operation between the peace-loving Great Powers and to adopt different lines of international policy?”