A New Start with Kashmir The new plan for a
settlement of the Kashmir dispute laid before the Security Council on Wednesday in a joint Anglo- American resolution gives the two contesting parties a great opportunity and lays on both a great responsibility. Admirable as the report of Sir Owen Dixon, the United Nations mediator, was in most respects, his rather despairing conclusion that now the two parties must be left to settle the.thing between themselves could not be accepted as final. The dispute has far too dangerous potentialities, and its settlement is far too necessary for the stabilisation of peace in Asia. The new proposals, for a fresh mediator, a plebiscite for the whole Kashmir territory, with United Nations troops if necessary to maintain order after de- militarisation, and the reference of any finally undecided points to arbitration—the possibility of some measure of partition not being excluded—constitute as sound a plan as could well be drafted. They present a challenge to Mr. Nehru's courage and statesmanship in particular, for since Pakistan was ready to accept any of the three plans put forward informally by the Dominion Prime Ministers, it is not from that side that the principal objections are likely to come. The Indian Prime Minister, who was unwilling to see what he called " foreign "- i.e. Commonwealth—troops used during the plebiscite, cannot as easily take exception to a United Nations force, regarding whose composition his views would no doubt have some weight. The essential now is to make a fresh start, with reproaches for old mistakes withheld and settlement and peace the supreme objective. India and Pakistan can, if they will, give the world a demonstration of how disputes between States can be resolved in a conciliatory and constructive spirit.
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