Cablegrams 199, 356, 1394 CANBERRA, 4 December 1947
SECRET

Soviet Proposals for Japanese Peace Conference
You should know that on 2nd December we addressed Note to Soviet
Legation here referring to recent Chinese proposals for
Preliminary Conference of eleven countries with F.E.C. voting
system and stating that we had learned nature of their own recent
proposals to China, United States and United Kingdom for Special
Session of Council of Foreign Ministers representing those four
countries in January, 1948, to consider question of preparing
Peace Settlement.

2. Note stated that we considered such a procedure inappropriate
since it does not take account of Australia's status as one of
principal belligerents in Pacific War, and added that our desire
for full representation on basis of equality with any other state
is based not only on our rights, but also on our desire to offer
fullest co-operation in reaching settlement acceptable to all
parties and to contribute to economic recovery of war-devastated
countries. An instance of this desire we quoted our recent offer
made in F.E.C. to return major portion of Australian share of
Japanese reparations to pool for distribution among other claimant
countries.