HOPEFUL TURN OF WORLD AFFAIRS

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5297, 9 January 1947, Page 2

HOPEFUL TURN OF WORLD AFFAIRS

W. N.

Ewer)

SOVET OONCKJATION BEVIN CREDITEiD WITH BRINGING ORjHATER HARMONY

(By

London, Dec. 31st The turn of the year is internatially far more hopeful than seemed possflble a very short time ago. There may perhaps have been a touch of Christmas optimism in Mr. Bevin's broadcast, whert he said we had at last come to the first stage of concord and harmony. But no one who has lived and worked througb the discords and clashes of 1946 can fail at its unexpected end to feel optim^ istic for 1947. There will be disappointments, new discords and new clashes. That is the way of the world. But there is no longer that haunting fear of' the summer and autumn months that the gap between Russia and the Western powers might prove unbridgeable and open hostility — if not actual war — between them inevitable. If the conflicts of 1946 could be resolved, then there is no need for despondency over 1947. What has brought the change? Why was New York so different from Paris? It is a recurrent question — and all-important for the future. I Iearn ffom a British Communist paper that the double success of New York (Assembly and Council of Foreign Ministers) was entirely due to the conciliatory attitude o-f M. Molotov. And the truth of tbat may be granted 'at once. But it only takes us half way to the answer." For the other half of the question is: Why was iM. Molotov, who was so Gbdurate in Paris, so conciliatory in New York — or at any rate towards the closc of the New York meetings? There may have been many factors conducing to the change. But two, I think, predominated. The one was tbat he found tbat Britain and the United States, i-eady enough to conciliate and compromise up to a point, Were not ready to give way indefinitely, and to yield on points which seemed to involve vital issues of principle or interest. From the moment that he realised that deadlocks and delays could not last interminably, tbat the choice lay between reasonable compromise and a decisive and dangerous breaeh, then compromise became possible. And once possible, it was not difficult; so thoroughly and exhaustively had every question been probed and discussed. Soviet Fears The other factor, I believe — and if I ani right it is by far the more important — is that the quite genuinc fears of Soviet leaders that Britain and America were planjning s'ome kind of aggression against the Soviet Union have been largely dissipated. They may revive; they could easily be revived by some unwise move. But I think that at the moment they are quiescent. The diminution in press and radio attacks on "British Imperialism" is significant. It is not complete. On the one hand, the author of a malicious attack on the British Navy in "Red Star" — ^the paper of the Soviet fleet — was severely reprimanded. Yet . almost on the isame day that "Pravda" rehuiked him, a winter in "Trud" — the trade union organ — accused Britain of planning "milatary adventures" and of following a policy of "imperialist expansion" in the Middle East; grotesque charge? which betray an almost pathologically suspicious mind. But overmuch attention need not be paid to outbursts of this kind: and there is always a time lag be- j fore such writers can attune themselves to changes of policy. Onc | hopes that far more significant are, ' for example, the immediate Soviet i agreement to send a commission of investigation to the Greek frontier, j and the unruffled cairn with which j the Persian Government's reoccupa- ! tion of Azerbaijan was accepted. A few months ago that would have been nervously and angrily attributed to machinations of "British agents." i The case of mine-laying in the Cor- j fu Ohannel and he handling in the ; next few months of the questic-n \ oi the Dardanelles will provide, per- j haps, decisive tests. So will the Moscow meeting on Germany. I ,0m ens Are Variable But omens at the moment arc j variable. There is at the least an j opportunity to be seized. And Mr. j Bevin has every intention ' of seiz- j ing it. To his critics at home, to the sq? } called "Labour rebels" he has now the most effective of all answers-: — j that of achievement. The" essence [ of their attack was that his policy was leading directly to an open I breach with Russia ; whereas, in fact, ,j it has produeed not a breach, but agx-eement; not an increase, but aj definite easing of tension. i Perhaps the mo-st dangerous thdng about this "revolt" is that is may still be misconstrued, and its importanee exaggerated, abroad. It is really a two-fold move. There is in it an element/which would like to see — or, at any rate, assumes — a definite breach between the Soviet Union and "Western capitalism." They advocate quite openly th:at Britain should "gang up" with the Soviet Union. They want, in a. fthrase of one of their spokesmen, close cooperation with Russia, and an end to "association" with America. Now, this is a tiny minorityj nor are their yiews sh'ared by most of the rebels. These would say that British policy must not tie itsblf either to Russia or. to America ; that it must be independent of either, or rather co-operative with both; a postulate from which Mr. Bevin would not dissent. He laid down on December 22 that we "have a mind and purpose of our own" and must "judge every problem on its merits." Their trouble is rather that they believe that on a number of specific , questions, especially in Balkans affairs, ihe Foreign Office has leaned undply towards what they fpel to be that anti-Russian side. It is a question ^or argumerit and will be duly

orgued' out in the usual manner of the Labour Party. But between them and the Foreign Secretary the issue is one of ways and means, of diplomatic facts, not of policy or purpose. And at this moment especially nothing could be more wrong and therefore more dangerous than widespread belief ■ that .a substantial section of the Labcur- Party believes either in "ganging up" with Russia against .America or that another section (including Mr. Bevin) believes in "ganging up" with America against Russia. An overwhelming mass of the party rejects both follies equally — and with them that third and basic folly of basing policy on the asstimption of an inevitable Russo-American conflict.