"PROSPECTS BRIGHTEN IN MOSCOW”

Grey River Argus, 2 September 1948, Page 8

"PROSPECTS BRIGHTEN IN MOSCOW”

A diplomatic correspondent writes: It now appears certain that as a result of the last discussion with Marshal Stalin, the. three Western envoys will meet M. Molotov again in the next few days.

No date has been fixed for such a meeting. The three envoys will not ask for it until the finishing touches have been put to the instructions which their Governments will be sending them. Before that happens, it is necessary for the three Western Governments further to pursue their consultations about the latest position reached in Moscow. The views of the three Military Governors in Berlin have to be sought and there will be continuous telegraphic exchanges with the three envoys in Moscow. All this takes time. The essential point is that the possibility of Soviet recognition of the Western Powers’ right to administer Berlin jointly with the Soviet Union on a four-Fower basis seems not to be excluded. Such recognition is the crux of the Moscow conversations. At the same time there are no signs of a local improvement of the situation in Berlin. Daily reports of kidnappings and other incidents snow that the Soviet authories are keeping the city in a state of electric tension and it looks as if the Soviet Govern.ment is waiting to see a denouement of the negotiation with the Western Powers before ordering that the current shall be turned off, or increased according to whether agreement is reached, or the reverse. The immediate and innocent victims of Soviet policy'in Berlin are the 2,000,000 German men, women and children living in the three Western sectors. The calm and courageous bearing of the Berliners under a prolonged strain has created a most favourable impression in London. If agreement is reached in Moscow that will' put an end to Berlin’s ordeal. Trains and barges loaded with coal and food for Berlin are waiting in the Western zones ready to move as soon as the Russians reopen communications. Meanwhile the efforts of the Western powers to feed Berlin by means of the air-lift are being continued unremittingly and effectively. There is complete unanimity of British public opinion behind His Majesty’s Government’s resolve to pursue this policy for so long as normal transport is not restored.

Ghost of Belgrade H.M. Government’s views on the Danube Conference which resulted in the Soviet Union establishing, a monopoly of control by the Soviet Union and its riparian satellites have already been pertinently expressed by the British delegate, Sir Charles Peake. But the outcome of the conference has wider implications than a demal of the true freedom of navigation on the Danube', and the arbitrary suppression of the rights, of non-rirar-ian users of the waterway. It may be regarded as a. further step in the consolidation of the Soviet zone behind the iron curtain to the exclusion <- of trade and intercourse with the West, and, not least, to the detriment of the economic interests of countries within the Soviet orbit. The national interests of the Soviet s satellites as the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform has shown, must be sacrificed in subservfence to the dominant interest of the SO T l he t ri Ol is? ie however, the revers de la medaille. The ghost of. Belgrade will haunt future intar ?\ atl + o J ial c; _ ferences on matters outside the Soviet orbit. " •-- —