THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, June 14, 1945. A DEADLOCK BROKEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25870, 14 June 1945, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Thursday, June 14, 1945. A DEADLOCK BROKEN

The announcement that the Big Three Powers have succeeded in reaching an agreement on the preliminary steps to be taken in the effort to effect a solution of the Polish question will be received with general gratification. This contentious problem has been one of the greatest obstacles to the development of more harmonious relations between the Soviet and the Western Allies, and the fact that no unanimity of opinion has been achieved among the Great Powers concerning it has marred the full splendour of the military victory in Europe. It would now appear that the resolute attitude adopted by Great Britain and the United States in refusing to recogriise any future Government for Poland other than one representative of all the anti-Nazi organisations has been rewarded by a modification of the Soviet’s championship of the Lublin Committee. At Yalta, Marshal Stalin signed a pledge to'assist in placing the reorganisation of the Lublin Committee on a broader democratic basis by the inclusion of representatives of other parties from within * Poland itself and from abroad. Subsequently, however, Russia showed little intention of permitting these decisions to be implemented. A group of 16 prominent leaders of the Polish underground movement who made contact with the Red Army in Poland were arrested for participating in what Mr Molotov described nebulously as “ diversionary activities,”. and their fate is still obscure. It is earnestly to be hoped that the suspicions which gave rise to these unfortunate misunderstandings will be allayed when the conference of Polish delegates meets the members of the Moscow Commission in Moscow tomorrow, and that nothing will be done to delay the setting up of a Provisional Government of National Unity in conformity with the terms of the Yalta declaration. The delegates- to the conference appear to constitute as representative a group of Polish political opinion as it would be possible to assemble in the absence of the 16 underground movement leaders who are, presumably, still in prison. The London delegation will include the former Premier, M. Mikolajczyk, who is regarded in many quarters in Great Britain as being the only person capable of reconciling the conflicting interests of the Polish Governments in Lublin and London. After M. Mikolajczyk had last year established friendly relations with both Marshal Stalin and the Lublin Committee, he was forced to resign from the premiership of the Government in exile because his colleagues would not agree to the acceptance of the Curzon Line as the Eastern frontier of the new Poland. His resignation was deplored by Mr Churchill who, in a speech in the House of Commons last December, predicted the subsequent coolness of the Soviet to the Polish Government in London/ but added that the prospects of reconciliation might advance again were M. Mikolajczyk able to speak with authority for the fortunes of the Polish rjation. It may be found that the presence of this respected statesman at Moscow will assist in bringing about an understanding between the parties to the conference.