AFTER PARIS
MR. MOLOTOV has spoken his last word at the Paris Con- ference and it was the same as his first. The treaty drafts as drawn up by the Council of Foreign Ministers should not be altered. When the conference recommended changes, the changes were bad. When the Conference suggested no change, Mr. Molotov was pleased. But he never has liked this Conference and he likes it no better in retrospect than he did in prospect. He tried to postpone it and he failed. It has not improved the treaties and so, says Mr. Molotov, he has been proved right. The whole thing was really a mistake. The trouble with Mr. Molotov's kind of consistency is that it must be entirely accepted or entirely rejected. It is the consistency of Marxist doctrine, which proves itself right by selecting those features of a given situation which are con- sistent with itself. It is the consistency of the complete bureaucrat whose plans have been so perfected that any modification of a part upsets the whole. And it is almost certainly fatal to inter- national agreement, which cannot avoid compromise. It may seriously be doubted whether a generally acceptable peace settle- ment is possible while Mr. Molotov remains the Soviet Foreign Minister. But the search must go on, and while it does the policy which Mr. Molotov represents remains a formidable obstacle.
The Paris Conference and the meeting of the Big Four which pitceded it have shown how not to do it. Impatience, violent speeches and recriminations do not get results. They merely pro- pagate themselves and smother what chances of agreement exist. The procedure question, which occupied so much time at Paris, is a case in point. Mr. Molotov first raised it at a time when the Big Four seemed to be ending their preparatory conference in relative harmony. It will be remembered that the general reaction was one of impatience and disgust. But it turned out that Mr. Molotov was right. The question of procedure was crucial, and however unacceptable Mr. 'Molotov's ideas on it may have been, the question itself could not be shunted into a siding. Quite possibly a little more patience in the Council of Foreign Ministers might have saved a lot of time at the Paris Conference. Mr. Bevin, indeed, seems now to have satisfied himself that patience and care hold more hopeful possibilities than impatience. Mr. Byrnes has shown less willingness to change his methods, though there may be some significance in the fact that he delegated the last displays of American toughness to Senator Vandenberg, who is a Republican and will support this policy with fewer doubts at the forthcoming American Congressional elections. Again, the later stages of the Conference produced fewer outbursts from the smaller Powers, of the sort which so upset the early sessions and which, in the colder light of retrospect, seem to have overlooked the fact that even the smallest Power may sometimes be wrong.- And finally the Yugoslays, who outdid all others for completely im- possible behaviour, could only in the end withdraw from the Conference after having laid up for themselves a store of ill-will. Judged purely by results, violent methods certainly were wrong. Far from softening Mr. Molotov, they hardened him.
That is not to say that Mr. Molotov is right in his aims and methods. His aims are still not declared and his methods are repugnant to Western minds. But the major issues are bigger than Mr. Molotov. First there is the need to avert another war. One statement which has acquired for itself the semblance of truth by virtue of constant repetition is that the U.S.S.R. will take five years to catch up with the U.S.A. in the production of atomic weapons. These are five years of grace which must be used in persuading all concerned, and not least the Russians, that atomic war has no rewards—only punishments. It may be that the Russians are impervious to persuasion. It may be that they really believe that war is inevitable between the Communist Powers and the Capitalist Powers. It may be that Mr. Stalin's recent statement was just eyewash. But to assume that it was is to assume the inevitability of Armageddon and so to out-Marx the Marxists. The lessons in method learned at Paris must be _given a trial in New York, if only as part of the process of exhausting all the resources of peaceful converse.
Unfortunately, much more was learned at Paris about how, and how not, to behave than about what, and what not, to do. But was that not inevitable? Many observers pointed out, when the Paris Conference was beginning, that its subject matter was of secondary importance. Neither singly nor collectively did the treaties with Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania and Finland threaten or confirm the possibility of European peace. The question of Trieste, which has been regarded as the central issue at Paris, is not in itself the kind of question on which Great Powers go to war—or if they do, as in the case of Danzig in 1939, it is only because a war situation has been created on other grounds. The question of the freedom of navigation on the Danube, which in itself might be regarded as even more important than Trieste, finally achieved significance at Paris as the issue which provoked the Russians to declare in favour of economic nationalism. That fact again confirms the early impressions of many observers, in- cluding The Spectator, that the Paris Conference was more im- portant for the basic attitudes it revealed than for the territorial questions it set out to decide.
Now the time for exercises in method is ending. On November 4th the four Foreign Ministers will meet in New York to settle the final treaties of peace with the five countries whose affairs were dismissed at Paris. ,Mr. Molotov must then reveal how far he will go in pressing Russian claims and Russian policies, for it is unthinkable that the Big Four will agree at all points. Then on November zoth they will meet, to discuss Germany. It is here that method and subject matter are fused to produce the issues which cannot be settled without planting the seeds of war or peace in Europe. This meeting will be preliminary. It may not be until January, when the main talks on Germany begin, probably in London, that the issue will finally be joined. In the meantime the General Assembly of the United Nations will have met, and no doubt will have thrown some further light on the veto question. But the really crucial immediate decisions will be those derived from the parallelogram of forces represented by the Big Four.
Consequently the exact relationship between these four Powers is a matter of first-class importance and one which has received singularly little careful analysis recently. It has been too easily assumed that Russia stands on one side and the U.S.A., Britain and France on the other. It is too easily forgotten that less than a year ago Britain found herself alone at •one end of the see-saw with Russia at the other end, the United States slipping away from the British end, and France exercising very little weight at all.
It has been noticed, but not sufficiently clearly, that the influence of France on the discussions of the Big Four has grown steadily and may become simultaneously greater and completely changed in character if France votes herself a Communist Government at the election of November loth. Finally no really careful assessment has been made of the effect on Anglo-American relations of the trade talks which began in London on Tuesday and will be con- tinued next spring, after the American Congressional elections, which themselves may have a noticeable effect on the still rather unstable foreign policy of the United States. The existing cleavage between East and West and the ultimate necessity for European integration are the major long-term forces and there must be a period of mutual pushing and pulling between them, continually distorted by the growing, but uncertain and largely experimental, influence of the United States. It would, in short, be unpardonably rash, in the light of recent history, to assume that the present three to one relationship among the Big Four is stable. It is equally certain that the crucial question of the settlement of Germany will provide the most exacting test of the real nature of their relations with each other. How long can the French desire for a weak and divided Germany be squared with the. British and American desire for a Germany which, however weak, will pay her way and relieve them of the burden of control and assistance? How long will the Americans' wish to get their soldiers out of Europe (despite Mr. Bymes's brave words to the contrary) stand the strain of the French and British conviction that a long occupation is inevitable? The discussions on Germany will turn a searchlight on these issues which will show up every joint and strain in the mutual relations of the Big Four. We must be quite sure that we are ready to face what the light reveals.
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