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U.S.S.R., the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Danubian States," in a conference to be convened within six months of the entry into force of the treaties. The French amendment was accepted by a vote on conventional lines. VII. SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES An unofficial Roumanian group which carried on a skilful lobbying campaign throughout the conference had severely criticized the draft treaties on account of the lack of precision of many of their clauses. Many principles, it is true, were set forth in such general terms that disputes could easily arise over their interpretation in particular concrete cases, and, in any event, it was desirable to provide beforehand some machinery which could handle without unreasonable delay such disputes as might subsequently arise. The U.S.S.R. had proposed a procedure which left the ultimate responsibility for appointing the third member of the Conciliation Commission, which it was proposed should be set up when necessary, in the hands of the heads of the diplomatic missions (in each ex-enemy capital) of such States as were concerned with the particular treaty in question and were also members of the Council of Foreign Ministers. The U.S.S.R. was evidently reluctant to contemplate the possibility of a final decision in such matters passing entirely out of its hands. It was stated that the U.S.S.R. delegation refused to consider even the possibility of disagreement between the heads of these diplomatic missions, who would, of course, be acting under the instructions of their Governments, though the general tenor of Conference debates afforded little evidence in support of such optimism. Voting on conventional lines, the Balkans Commission adopted the text sponsored by the United Kingdom, which empowered the President of the International Court of Justice in the last resort to nominate the third member of any Conciliation Commission. In the Italian Commission, the United States proposed an alternative procedure, to some extent based on suggestions made by the Italian Government itself. The United States draft was accepted by 14 votes to 6, and as there was reason to believe that it was technically superior to the United Kingdom proposal, upon which the United Kingdom delegation insisted that the Commission should also take a vote, the New Zealand delegation joined the majority of 13 to 4 by which the United Kingdom draft was rejected. The United Kingdom did not insist on a further vote being taken in the Plenary Session, which accepted the United States proposal by 15 votes to 6. On none of the main economic problems in dispute can it be claimed that the deliberations of the Commissions perceptibly narrowed the gap between the protagonists. Little attention, if any, was paid by the Conference to the broader long-range issues of general European