BIG FOUR DIFFER

Grey River Argus, 26 June 1946, Page 5

BIG FOUR DIFFER

ON MAIN ISSUES East Europe Questions LONDON, June 24. The Foreign Ministers have failed to reach agreement on any of the main points discussed during the formal session .this afternoon, namely, the French-Italian frontier, the limitation 'of the Italian navy, and freedom of navigation on the Danube. The Ministers decided that a strip of territory in the Adige region of the Italo-Austrian frontier, claimed by Austria, should remain Italian. They agreed to instruct their deputies to investigate whether Austria and Italy could reach a. mutually-advant-ageous arrangement in regard to the use of the railways in this area, failing which guarantees to Austria concerning the use of sections of the Innsbruck-Linz railway should be written into the Italian treaty. The Ministers agreed to Mr Bevin’s proposal that the personal injuries clause should be withdrawn from the Roumanian tre'hty. They referred to their deputies another British proposal that an arbitration tribunal should be established to settle disputes in carrying out the Roumanian treaty. M. Molotov to-day had what was described as a cordial talk with the Hungarian Prime Minister about Hungarian border questions. The latter, who hopes later to put his case before the assembled Ministers, told the press he would ask the Ministers to reconsider last month’s decision, that Transylvania should belong to Roumania. He said he favoured freedom of commerce between Hungary and all the Allied nations on equal terms.

The diplomatic correspondent of the “Evening Standard” said: The calling of a peace conference of twenty-one nations in Paris next month is now virtually certain. It is considered probable that the Russians will agree to a compromise on the subject of Italian reparations, and although the future status of Trieste is still the conference’s thorniest problem, M. Molotov is likely to agree with Mr. Bevin’s proposal that the port and the surrounding hinterland shall be administered by the United Nations. A Russian spokesman suggested that it should be possible to call the full peace conference on August 1, even if that meant the postponement of the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly for a week. OTTAWA, June 22. The Prime Minister, Mr Mackenzie King, replying in the House of Commons to a welcome home from opposition leaders, said his London conversations with those having inside knowledge, had confirmed that the world situation is' as difficult as any time jn history. He added he was never more grateful that Canada was a member of the British Commonwealth than at present, as a result of what he had seen and learned. “This is a time when all of us who love freedom cannot be bound too closely together by every possible bond which will cement relations between nations,” he said. Danube Problems (Rec. 5.5’) BUDAPEST, June 25. The Acting-Prime Minister, M. Szakasits has announced there will be a meeting in Hungary this summer of representatives of all Danubian countries under sponsorship of the l Soviet to discuss mutual economic problems. He said representatives of Danube Valley countries had been endeavouring with Soviet backing, to hold a round table conference to discuss financial and economic co-op-eration and the free passage of goods and persons> on the Danube river.