61

an unspecified amount —the figure of S2OO million had been widely mentioned, but apparently without official backing —was to be paid by Italy to claimants such as Greece and Yugoslavia. The position of Bulgaria had been left quite obscure. It was difficult to believe that these figures had been the result of .any careful objective analysis of all the relevant factors. The Australian delegation believed that such an objective analysis was necessary, .and that the Conference itself was not adequately equipped to attempt it, and therefore proposed a series of amendments to the draft treaties designed to create institutional machinery upon which would be placed the responsibility for a more " scientific " survey of the problem as a whole, correlating the competing claims of rival allies in relation to -countries from which more than one State was hopeful of collecting reparations, and ultimately administering the actual processes of reparation deliveries with a view to ensuring that they inflicted the least possible -damage on the economies of the paying countries and on the long-term prospects for the revival of an orderly world trade. The amendments :as originally drafted were open to objection on the ground of overelaboration —the French delegate described them as " too logical and theoretical " —and the unfortunate time-table accident which compelled Australia to argue the case first in relation to Roumania, where it was weakest, as the U.S.S.R. was the only claimant for reparations from that country, made it easy for the U.S.S.R. to press the unfair criticism that the amendments were a veiled attack on reparation liabilities already agreed and accepted. In principle indeed there was much to be said for the Australian amendments, and in the final stages of the Conference proceedings, when an effort was made by the Soviet Bloc to refer back the problem •of Bulgarian reparations to the Council of Foreign Ministers without taking a vote on the subject in the Conference, arguments were used in support of this proposal which were very similar to those which had ■ earlier been violently attacked when they were first put forward by the Australian delegation. After lengthy debate the Australian amendment was withdrawn in the case of Roumania, and not pressed in relation to the other smaller ex-enemy States. It was, however, carried to a vote in the Italian Economic Commission, which rejected it by 15 votes to 2. New Zealand voting with Australia in favour of it, and three other • delegations abstaining. Several delegations had, however, expressed .approval of that part of the original Australian amendment which contemplated the constitution of a Reparations Commission to supervise and co-ordinate reparation deliveries, once the aggregate volume of claims had been fixed. A more modest proposal drafted with this purpose in mind was later presented to the Italian Commission, where in an amended form it received a majority of 12 votes to 8. The more far-reaching Australian amendment having been rejected or withdrawn, the Italian Commission was confronted with the task of assembling the claims of the Allies, other than the U.S.S.R., against