PEACE CONFERENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23432, 23 August 1939, Page 13

PEACE CONFERENCE

BELGIAN INITIATIVE SEVEN NEUTRAL NATIONS APPEAL TO GREAT POWERS BRUSSELS, Aug. 21 At a special meeting to-day the Belgian Cabinet decided to propose that the signatories to the Oslo Convention —Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Luxemburg, Denmark and Finland — should issue a joint appeal for peace. King Leopold is inviting seven Foreign Ministers to Brussels for a conference on Wednesday. The appeal will be addressed to the Great Powers, urging them to make the utmost effort to avoid a war which would lead to untold sufferings by their own peoples and also those of smaller nations not concerned in their quarrels. Norway, Sweden and Denmark have already agreed to attend the conference. The Belgian Foreign Minister, M. Hubert Pierlot, will preside at the conference. The aim will be the coordination of the attitude of the neutral nations toward certain problems, for instance, the transportation of food supplies, the care of wounded, and sheltering refugees. The peace appeal is being drafted. King Leopold will not mediate. He is a supporter, not the inspirer of the conference.

While the echoes of rolling gun wheels and marching men permeate Central Europe, the reactions to the Oslo Powers' conference have not yet become fully audible. Comments range from a Wilhelmstrasse spokesman's remark that the conference will be successful "if the participants talk sense to Poland and persuade her allies to return to the principles of the Lansing Note," to the French inclination to coldshoulder any efforts directed to "changing the name of Munich to Brussels." The Wilhelmstrasse spokesman adds that Germany is not making any concessions.