NEWS OF THE WEEK
IT was always likely that there .would be some casualties among the 54 countries invited to attend the San Francisco conference on the Japanese Peace Treaty. Attitudes to Japan vary so enormously from country to country, and six years of post-war development have done so much to change the relatively simple 1945 outlook of the victors, that it is something of a miracle that 48 have already undertaken to attend. Up to the time this is written two countries have rejected the invitation to San Francisco— Burma, for the narrow but simple reason that the treaty makes insufficient provision for reparations, and India, for a series of broad and confused reasons which seem to add up to the objection that the treaty falls short of perfection. But no treaty requiring the signature of 54 countries, from Norway to New Zealand and from the United States to Indonesia, can possibly be completely acceptable in each particular to all of them, though it could almost certainly be said for the present draft that it will have a wider and more stable international status than the bilateral treaty between India and Japan which the Indian Government now proposes. The attempt must continue up to the very last minute to iron out any avoidable imperfections in the draft. But the position of honour, equality and contentment among the free nations for which India asks, on behalf of Japan, is something which cannot be secured by any treaty, although the Americans have certainly gone a very long way in their attempt to make things easy for the Japanese—,-who must now make their own way towards the goal. The utter confusion of the Indian territorial recommendations, which urge that Japan should recover her sovereignty over all territories other than those which she acquired by aggression, except the Kuriles and Ryuku Islands (which_ happen to be held by the. Russians), will please nobody (except possibly the Russians). And since the 'object of the Russian delegation will be to prevent any gennihe improvement in the treaty, the total effect of the Indian demarche is therefore to make a hard task harder. .
