A PROMISE FROM PARIS
- The results of the Paris meeting, although consistent with a Russian wish for a minimum settlement to ease the growing economic difficulties in Eastern Germany, have curiously little in 'common with the sketchy agenda issued before, and at the beginning of, the conference. The Berlin currency question which wasted so much time last year, the omission of which from a statement by Premier' Stalin started the moves leading to the meeting, and the inclusion of which in all preliminary statements was insisted upon by the Russians, had no place in the final statement. The question ‘of Austria, which was not mentioned in the New York agreement, which only got in at the tail end of the agenda, and which M. Vyshinsky constantly refused to discuss, in the end got very near to a genuine settlement. It is true that the only real concession -made by the Russians was their abandonment of their time-wasting support of the fantastic territorial claims of Yugoslavia. It is also true that the assets of the Danube Shipping Company, 6o per cent. of Austrian oil production and $iso million in cash, is a stiff price for the relinquishment of the rapacious Russian claim on former 'German assets. But still a settlement on this basis is likely to be
• acceptable in the end, particularly to the Austrians, who are
"pardonably impatient for the end of the occupation. .
- The way is now open for further progress towards a settlement- ' progress which is only possible to the extent that the Russians can
be made to realise that there are concessions which they may make to their own advantage, as well as to that of Europe as a whole. It is as well to recognise at the beginning, as General Bedell Smith did in an admirably clear-headed speech this week, that the Western Powers will have to fight their way inch by inch along this road. It must be realised by all concerned, and in particular by the ordinary American citizens whom General Bedell Smith was addressing, that if the Russians are ready to rule out war as a present instrument of policy, they are certainly not prepared to rule out obstruction and delay. The cold war is a war of attrition. But the events of the past two months are a sign that the West can hold its own.
