Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1945 POTSDAM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 6 August 1945, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1945 POTSDAM

WHILE the summary of decisions made at Potsdam shows that the conference touched bedrock in the basic task of building the peace the communique issued is nearly as remarkable for what was omitted as for what it said. Confident forecasts that there would be a pronouncement about Russia’s attitude to the Japanese war proved wrong but the paragraph stating simply that the Chiefs of Staff of the three Governments met to discuss “military matters of common concern” is widely construed as an oblique reference to the Pacific conflict and there is a feeling that decision may issue in action though not necessarily in direct Soviet interventi<fh as a belligerent. In any case it is not like Stalin to give prior notice of what he intends to do in the military sphere. Information about Turkey and the Dardanelles is conspicuous by its absence and very little is said about the Balkans generally. Yet these topics must have been well up on the order paper so the conclusion is that interim silence means that no agreement about them has yet been reached. Persia (Iran) must remain uneasy while there is no reply to her demand for the withdrawal of Allied troops from her territory.

Positive achievement, however, is abundant. Potsdam has gone into more detail than any of the other conferences of the “Big Three” and nowhere is this more purposeful than in the plans for the treatment of Germany. Here a concrete programme replaces uncertainty. All measures to be taken are directed towards the single objective of ensuring that she never again menaces the peace of the world while giving the Germans a chance to work their passage back to respectability. The road will be hard, for the Germans are going to be made to pay for their sins, but it is not without long-term hope. Territorial rearrangements divide East Prussia between Poland, who is to get Danzig, and Russia, who will ultimately have Konigsberg, while a large slice is carved off eastern Germany as compensation for Polish losses to Russia. Henceforth her western frontier will follow the River Oder from the Baltic to the western Neisse and then run approximately along this river,

to the Czechoslovakian border. Such a realignment would give her the Baltic port Qf Stettin, the big German city of Frankfurt and the rich mineral and industrial region of Silesia, which is a prize indeed. Russia apparently wishes that this redrawing of frontiers shall take effect immediately, yet no corresponding readjustments have been agreed on in the West, where France is particularly concerned, or in the Balkans, where Yugoslavia is agitated. Other settlements in Europe .are to proceed piecemeal, with the burden of responsibility for negotiations resting with the newly-created Council of Foreign Ministers, which is clearly to be a body of the first magnitude. France and China are to be asked to join, so its sphere of activity will not be confined to Europe. As visualised at Potsdam peace-making is to go ahead by stages with the decisions being confirmed, if necessary, by an over-all conference, though it is quite possible that post-war Europe and even Asia may be reconstructed without having the counterpart of Versailles. In any event most of the set-up would have been agreed upon before that level was reached. A treaty with Italy is given first priority and agreements with Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary and Rumania Sre expected to follow in due course. The most definite assertion coming out of Potsdam concerns Franco’s Spain. It has been laid down that membership of United Nations is open to any nation—including neutrals in the war—who can conscientiously subscribe to the Charter. The exception is Spain under her present regime. Notice has been served that she cannot obtain admittance to this company until she gets rid of Franco and fascism.