NEWS OF T HE WEEK
AWEEK ago the Paris Conference was almost at its last gasp. The time-limit that the four Foreign Ministers had set them- selves was about to be passed, and progress was slower than ever. What has happened since has been a demonstration that there are lengths of unreason to which representatives cannot go when the peoples they represent fundamentally desire a reasonable settlement. A week of progress which began with the increasingly familiar rapid fire of minor concessions, this time giving the Dodecanese to Greece, the Briga and Tenda regions to France and four cruisers to Italy, ended with an acceptable compromise on the major question of Trieste. M. Bidault started the ball rolling with a plan which intro- duced for the first time an effective suggestion for international control of the disputed area. Then followed the usual succession of misgivings, outrageous bargaining demands by M. Molotov, re- crimination and near-despair. At the end there emerged the scheme for a free territory of Trieste bounded roughly by the line of de- marcation between Italy and Jugoslavia suggested by the French. Since this is the westernmost of the boundaries discussed, excepting always the fantastic claim of the Jugoslays themselves, M. Molotov has really done quite well for his clients. So everybody is moderately happy, except the Italians. But nobody is disposed to rejoice, and indeed there is no solid cause for rejoicing. Only by the standards
the Paris Conference, with its bargaining and bad temper, is the total achievement satisfactory. M. Bidault, to whom much of the final success is due, would be the last to claim that it is any- thing but the minimum of common sense. And its achievement has consumed so much time that the central problem of Germany has hardly been touched. Moreover, the next step is far from clear. Mr. Byrnes continues to insist that the full peace conference shall
eet this month, and that it shall have something to discuss ether than a string of accomplished facts. M. Molotov con- mues to insist that there shall be no conference until all major ifferences are ironed out. If M. Bidault, or anybody else,
produce a compromise to fit this situation he will be a enius indeed.
