INVITATIONS ISSUED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26200, 10 July 1946, Page 5

INVITATIONS ISSUED

PEACE CONFERENCE THE MINISTERS AGREE LONDON, July G. Mr James Byrnes, at the morning session of the Foreign Ministers’ Conference, proposed that the Ministers record a vote on the question whether (he decision reached on July 4 to issue invitations to the peace conference should be implemented immediately. Mr Molotov was the only dissentient. He described Mr Byrnes's submission as an “ outrageous imposition of American will upon the conference.”

Mr Molotov added that there was no question of anyone wanting to alter the conference date, but he insisted that the proposed rules of procedure should be submitted to the various Governments, simultaneously with the invitations.

The conference adjourned until the evening, when the Ministers strove for the utmost informality in an effort to crack the peace conference invitations deadlock, says Reuter’s Paris correspondent. The table was removed, and the Ministers lounged in armchairs, talking more in a clubroom atmosphere than that of a formal conference. The correspondent said Mr Molotov's object in blocking the immediate issue of the peace conference invitations appeared to be to obtain a minimum guarantee that the 21 nations should not have unlimited power. Mr Molotov’s proposed procedural rules suggest that in considering each of the five treaties with Italy, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland there should be in each case a steering committee composed of those countries which actually fought against the exenemy nation concerned. The steering committees would limit the peace conference's power to modify any previous “Big Four” agreement. At the end of the evening the Ministers had reached agreement on the peace conference invitations isspe. The invitations to the conference will go out to-morrow.

The Foreign Ministers also agreed that the draft rules of procedure for the peace conference should be studied by the deputies and referred back to tlie Ministers at their next session tomorrow.

The peace conference invitations, acompanied by the proposed rules of procedure, will be issued in the name of the Paris Conference of Foreign Ministers, which means that China will not be included among the inviting Powers. China has protested against this, declaring that the Moscow agreement stipulated that the peace conference should be convoked by the “ Council of Foreign Ministers,” which included China.