Evening star., 1946-06-11
Peace and Co-Operotion

Commons last week Foreign Secre-
tary Bevin gave it as his belief that
mo really insurmountable division"
exists between Russia and the west
ern democracieS. 1T has been said"
he declared, that east and west will
never meet. Science, may say, has
settled that. Not only must we meet,
but we must understand and learn
to co-operate."
MIR. Bevin thus emphasized Brit
aims anxiety to work with Russia in
keeping with the concept that ours
is one world. that international Sc
curity is indivisible. and that "if we
do not want to have total war we
must have total peace" At the
same time, however, he declared
that if the four-power Council of
Foreign Ministers at Paris cannot
agree on the essential preliminaries
to such peace, then he and Foreign
Ministers Bidault and Molotov
should be willing to adopt Secretary
Byrnes' proposal to "let daylight
into the problem" by submitting
their differences to the projected
general conference OF 81 nations.
When he argued against this in
his recent statement in Pravda, Mr..
Molotov based his objection on the
ground Cd That at the Moscow Con-
ference last year the Big Four COM
mitted themselves to agree on draft
treaties for Italy, Hungary, Romania,
Bulgaria and Finland before con-
vening the 21-nation meeting, and
CD that to proceed otherwise would
be to invite "fiasco," because If the
four could not arrive at an under
standing it would be foolish to ex-
pect that the 81 could. Stated In
just that way, Mr.. Molotov's view
point is at least plausible enough to
be defensible. Not defensible, how
ever, is the rather ominous way in
which Pravda seems to have en-
larged upon it in an article answer
ing Mr.. Bevin over the week end;
for according to this latest interpre-
tation the British Foreign Secretary,
in espousing the Byrnes proposal,
has merely laid the psychological
groundwork "for a complete retreat
from the established principles Of
collaboration among the Allies"
In other words. disregarding
everything that Mr.. Bevin said about
the immense Importance of cooper
alton, Pravda now suggests that
Britain and America are getting
ready to split the one world into two
and "to use methods Of pressure and
threats" Against their Soviet ally, !,
apparently with a view to isolating
the latter and ignoring its legitimate
claims and interests. Unfortunately.
the gulf between the east and west
may in fact be made more or less
unbridgeable, but if that happens
it will not be because the western
democracies have willed it that way,
but because Russia-whether out of
unjustif1ed suspicion, fear or some
other motive-has persistently taken
a nay-sayer's position regarding is
sues on which the three others of
the Big Four are generally agreed.
The proposal to hold a 21-nation
conference may have its serious
flaws, of course, but if the Foreign
Ministers continue in deadlock when
they convene again at the end of
this week, something like it will
have to be tried or the making OF
peace will be delayed indefinitely.
In Mr.. Bevin's words, to do nothing
in such circumstances would be
much the same as saying to the
world, "You must go on in a state
OF war forever because we four
gentlemen cannot agree" This is
not the viewpoint of man who
wants to break away from inter-
Allied cooperation. In saying that
1t is, Pravda so grossly misreads or
misrepresents the situation that the
Paris meeting will be dismal, indeed.
unless Mr.. Molotov attends it with
different line.