A Chance in Kashmir
After more than six months of stalemate there is now the flicker of hope that the Kashmir deadlock may be broken by peaceful agreement and not, as has seemed increasingly probable, by war. The delegates of both India and Pakistan at Lake Success have agreed to the appointment of a mediator who is to take over the work of the United Nations Commission, which was obliged to throw in its hand last September. This in itself solves none of the problems which have, until now, prevented the holding of that plebiscite to which both States are committed—in particular, how the preliminary demilitarisation is to be carried out, and what authority is to administer the disputed areas during the plebiscite. However, the fact that the creaking machinery of negotiation has once more been set in motion is a good augury for success. This wretched dispute, which ties up much more than half the budget of both India and Pakistan in defence expenditure and strangles the mutual trade on which the prosperity of each depends, is a luxury which in the end neither of them can afford.
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