No Progress at Lancaster House
The fact that Mr. Molotov should have seen fit to suggest that the Foreign Ministers should submit, within two months, proposals for a German peace treaty based on the decisions at Yalta and Potsdam, is significant. In the first place it confirms, if confirmation were needed, that he has no genuine intention of agreeing to anything of importance during the present meeting, whose intention is precisely to draw up proposals for a treaty. In the second place its rejection gives him yet another excuse for accusing the Western Powers of obstructing a settlement. In neither case does it do any good. It would be premature to write off the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers as a failure, after little more than a week's discussion. But the fortnight, which was the life reputedly assigned by Mr. Marshall to the meeting unless genuine progress could be shown, is up next Tuesday, and there has been no progress so far. It was unlikely in any case that the attempt would be given up so soon, if only because the importance of this meeting in history had been described in advance in such solemn terms. It may be sug- gested, on a basis of past experience, that when international con- ferences begin late in November the underlying feeling is that they will break up before Christmas. But although Mr. Molotov has made one or two trifling procedural concessions—and, after all, the pace of the Conference is the pace of Mr. Molotov—the volume of work to be done is such that, with the best will in the world, it would be-difficult to complete it before Christmas, 1947. The issues dis- cussed so far might almost have been specifically designed to remain unsettled indefinitely. They are the same old weary list—is the eastern frontier of Germany final or provisional ? ; is a German Government to be constituted before or after the treaty ? ; which Powers want a centralised Germany and which do not ? The words in which these matters were discussed are unimportant. The result is, as ever, negative. A few new excuses for disagreement have been found—most notably the requirement of the American and French constitutions that the German constitution shall contain a clause stating that its powers must be exercised in a manner consistent with the treaty. This is only another way of saying that, since treaties are a part of the law of the land of the two countries concerned, they
must not be broken. But to Mr. Molotov it appears to be a sinister plot to interfere with the Germany of the future. It is as good a point to disagree about as any other, but for the time being its bnly func- tion is to diminish further the very small chances of any agreement.
