SUDDEN AND DRAMATIC ENDING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 17 December 1947, Page 7

SUDDEN AND DRAMATIC ENDING

“The Allies of the war have fallen apart,” says the Daily Mail in a leader. "Now we are confronted not with one world but with two. The East is sundered 1 from the West. One can almost hear the clanging as thicker plates are riveted to the iron curtain.” No date was fixed for the next • meeting. All that any Minister would say was that he hoped they could meet again in a ' happier atmosphere, but clearly, says the Times diplomatic correspondent, it was no more than a hope. Mr. Bevin expressed himself with great honesty when he said he wondered whether the four Ministers would ever be able to settle the German and European problem. “The four Ministers are, in fact,” the Times correspondent point out, "even farther behind than when they ad- ~ journed the Moscow conference last April. At Moscow they had disagreed, but they did manage to arrange the London meeting. ~ ‘Last night they could make no plans for the future and it seems certain that : the separatist tendencies in Germany will develop. The Big Four suddenly and dramatically ended the London session with the

problem of Germany’s future still unsolved says the Daily Mail’s political writer. The Ministers pushed back

their chairs, formally shook hands and left the council chamber of Lancaster House and made their way, apparently automatically to the buffet.

Mr. Bevin ordered drinks. Champagne was drunk for the first time during the conference. Mr. Bevin toasted M. Molotov who toasted Mr. Bevin and M. Bidault and members of the American delegation joined in. The party broke up within 20 minutes. There is little hope that the council will reassemble. The impact of the Marshall plan was decisive. The prospects of aid and the ultimate recovery of Europe which the plan offered really caused the conference to break down.

The Times diplomatic writer says that despite Mr. Marshall’s and M. Molotov’s statements last week, the conference’s collapse was something of a surprise. None of the really big issues had even been discussed in anything remotely like practical terms. The real issue on which the conference rested was reparations. The Ministers discussed the Austrian treaty without success, procedure with insignificant success and economic principles with slightly more success, but without touching the main points. Not a word had been said about (he American draft treaty of guarantee

against German rearmanent nor about demilitarisation and denazification. The Daily Herald’s diplomatic correspondent says the conference achieved precisely nothing, because such few agreements as were reached were conditional on others which were never reached. The news of the breakdown of the conference spread rapidly, in Berlin last night and many Germans were apprehensive by the seeming completeness of the breach between M. Molotov and the other Ministers, says the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Berlin. They were asking whether this meant that, at last, there was to be -a permanent division between the eastern and western zones—a prospect which depresses them almost more than any other. There was also renewed speculation about the possibility of the Western Powers abandoning Berlin. “It is generally expected,” the correspondent adds, “that the Russians will now intensify their propaganda with the aim of winning over as many Germans as possible and redouble their campaign of-trying to demonstrate that the four-power administration through the Control Council has failed and that Germany’s only real friend is Russia. “The Soviet-controlled newspapers in Berlin have been pursuing this line with great vigour in recent weeks.” Reuter’s correspondent in Berlin says that disappointment and renewed pessimism swept Germany as a result of the news of the adjournment of the conference. The Christian Democrat Party stated: “The decision means that the state of suspense in which Germany has existed since the Moscow conference will continue indefinitely and the muddling will go on.” The Moscow radio broadcast a Tass news agency message from London saying that Mr. Bevin, Mr. Marshall and M. Bidault never intended the conference to succeed. America’s plan all the time was to split off western Germany, which she treats as a colony, stated the radio. “The other Powers tried to blame Russia for the breakdown. The London newspapers said in advance that a breakdown was inevitable and demanded one-sided concessions from Russia. “Now the Americans plan to disrupt all preparation for the peace treaty with Germany.”