Three-Power- Procrastination
Wherever the fault may lie, and it by no means lies with the British Government, the delay in reaching any conclusion about the Four-Power talks on Germany is -deplorable in the last degree. Consider the course of the negotiations. It was as long ago as November 3r-d that Russia made her proposal for a meeting of the Foreign Ministers. It was hedged about with conditions which. the Western Powers could not be expected to accept, and they said so on December 22nd—a_delay of some seven weeks—in a communica- tion which at any rate closed no doors and which proposed a preliminary conclave of deputies to prepare an agenda. Russia replied in ten days (a period which included the Christmas inter- lude) expressing views which, while little more satisfactory than Russian views commonly are, appeared to indicate her willingness to broaden the agenda for the coming conference beyond the narrow limits to which the Allies originally and rightly took exception, and definitely indicated her agreement to the proposed preliminary con- ference. That was on January 1st. Since then there has been dead silence. All the Western Powers have to decide is whether they want a Four-Power Conference or not ; there is no room for more argument about it. There will never be a settlement if there is never a meeting to discuss a settlement.
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