GOOD IMPRESSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25202, 15 May 1945, Page 3

GOOD IMPRESSION

MOLOTOV AT CONFERENCE "UNFAILING GENIALITY" With the departure of the Soviet Foreign Commissar, M. Molotov, the United Nations Conference on Internationa] Organisation has lost its most colourful personality, says Mr JH. A. McClure Smith in a despatch to the Sydney -Morning Herald from San Francisco. M, Molotov's last official action was to give a cocktail party in honour of the Ukrainian and White Russian delegates. at which I. had the privilege of meeting him. Of the impressions carried away, the most vivid are the intensity of his pale blue eyes, the atmosphere of good humour which he radiates, and the ease with which lie converses through his personal interpreter, M. Pavlov. The interpreter seldom leaves the commissar's side, but he is so selfefracing that conversation flows as though he were a ventriloquist's dummy. Small and thick-set, with the rosy cheeks of a man enjoying excellent health. M. Molotov could pass for a prosperous business man anywhere in the United States. There is nothing about him which squares with the traditional capitalist idea of what a Soviet commissar looks like, unless it be the indefinable air of authority which underlies his smiling bonhomie, or the unmistakable precautions against any unauthorised approach to him, which seemed to be maintained unrelaxed even at his own party, admittance to which was most jealously guarded. To the various heads of tho delegations who attended the party, especially the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Kden, and the United States Secretary of State, Mr Stettinius, Molotov showed unfailing geniality, but an Australian, at least! could not fail to observe with satisfaction the undoubted warmth with which he greeted the Australian Minister for External Affairs. Dr Evatt, to whom lie proceeded to talk on terms of familiarity which brought much laughter from both men. It is no secret that the Russians have been impressed by the cogency and vigour with which Dr Evatt has argued his brief at San Francisco, and on more tjian one occasion M. Molotov and Dr Evatt have worked together to overcome some hitch in the conference proceedings. HOW BRITAIN WAS FED A "COMBINED OPERATION" Lord Wool ton, speaking at the concluding session of the British Association divisional conference at the Royal Institution, disclosed that in 1940 Britain was faced with a drop of 50 per cent in food imports, and was saved from starvation by the application of scientific knowledge to the problem of securing the right foods, not to satisfy appetites but to give nutrition, states the Times of London. At the same time scientific research applied to agriculture was making it possible for British farmers to increase the yield of the land beyond the most hopeful public expectations. Now in a "combined operation" in which the scientist had played such a conspicuous part standards of health were well maintained, and in many respects improved, while agriculture was serving a great national purpose*