21 DECEMBER 1912, Page 2

On Monday the Peace Conference opened at St. James's Palace,

and Sir Edward Grey delivered a speech of welcome to the delegates of the Balkan Alliance and Turkey. The King, said Sir Edward Grey, desired to express to the delegates his most earnest wish that they might succeed in their task. For himself, he remarked that the Conference would find in London an atmosphere of calm and impartiality. " In these rooms where you are going to deliberate you will be, as it were, on a true neutral territory where there will be no politics except your own." The difficulties of the task were admitted, but there could be no more noble achievement than to surmount them. After the chief delegates had replied, Sir Edward Grey accepted the post of honorary president.