The Pope, The Soviet Union and Peace On Sunday the
Pope broadcast a message which vividly expressed the desire for peace which animates all the peoples, if not all the Governments, of Europe. These words have been backed up by active steps of the Vatican's, designed to create a relaxation of the existing tension. It is reported, on authority which commands respect, that this activity will culminate in a proposal for a five-Power conference, includ- ing Great Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Italy, to discuss, and settle if possible, the Polish-German and the Franco-Italian problems. Such a proposal, however well- intentioned, calls clamantly for reconsideration. A conference which excluded the Soviet Union could only be a disturb- ingly suggestive repetition of Munich. The Soviet Union is a European Power of the first magnitude, and it cannot be perpetually treated as half in and half out of Europe—in when we want its diplomatic or military support and out when we feel it possible to do without that. Geographically Russia has more title to be represented in a conference on Danzig than Great Britain, and in a conference on the Mediterranean than Germany. No well-advised initiative for peace, least of all one coming from a man so fully qualified by wisdom and knowledge, as well as by the unique-position he holds, as Pius XII can be lightly dismissed. But it would be fatal if Britain and France, in the midst of their efforts to bring in Russia as a defender of peace in Europe, were parties to her deliberate exclusion from a peace conference of any kind.
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