NEWS OF THE WEEK
THERE is little genuine encouragement to be derived from the initial agreement on matters of secondary importance reached by the Foreign Ministers at their meeting in Paris on Monday. The realities of the situation were revealed on Tuesday when the question of Italian reparations was considered. While Mr. Bevin is ready to clean the slate and leave Italy to recover as best she may, without a reparations millstone round her neck, M. Molotov holds out per- sistently for the full satisfaction of his claim of $too,000,000. Mixed up with that are the questions of the relation of compensation to Allied nationals for damage done to their property in Italy and of the value of the assets that could be handed over to Russia in liquida- tion of her compensation claim, M. Molotov, of course, put the lowest estimate on the latter, and ceaselessly pressed his claim for payment out of Italy's industrial production in the immediate future, a proposal which, it is suggested in some quarters, indicates a desire to deflect Italian export-channels permanently eastward. The whole problem remains unsolved, and in front are looming the further problems of Trieste and Venezia Guilia, of the Italian colonies, of the Danube, of trade with Balkan countries, of Germany generally, and of Austria. It is something that M. Molotov should have agreed to discuss Austria at all, and every modification in his rigid attitude deserves to be recorded. But whether the Conference will hold together till the Austrian question is reached must be considered doubtful. If Tuesday's discussions are any guide the danger of a complete breakdown, with a deepening of the fissure, geographical and doctrinal, between the Western and Eastern Powers, is as imminent as ever. That is a disaster to be avoided at almost any cost.
