1. Informal Meeting of the Heads of the Delegations and Observers
was held to-day at the home of the Prime Minister to discuss the
procedure.

2. To-morrow, Nehru will open the Conference and there will be
short speeches from any who wish to speak. Romulo supported our
move to avoid speeches, but Nehru was conscious of the fact that
the public session required more than one speech.

3. It is clear that the Arab group will endeavour to use the
conference for own ends by means of stressing the principles of
the United Nations and implying that if they were applied there
would be support for the Arabs in the Palestine question.

4. Nehru asked what delegation wished to speak at the opening and
suggested alphabetical order. We managed to avoid this and the
position is that at the opening any who wish to speak will inform
Nehru. We have indicated that we do not wish to speak but if in
the course of the session, it appears necessary to offset the
Arabs, or in any other way give the Conference true perspective,
we may wish to intervene. Even then, it is proposed to use the
Minister's recent statements [1] and merely emphasize the purposes
of the Conference and the willingness of the Government to
consider its conclusion when reported by its officials attending
the Conference.

5. When the Conference goes into secret session tomorrow
afternoon, there will be no difficulty in keeping it on the rails.

Nehru, in the chair, will prevent irrelevant discussions. He is
looking to us very much in all aspects of the Conference.

6. Neither the Dutch nor Indonesians will be invited to the
Conference and always the endeavour will be made, according to
Nehru to be objective.

7. Nehru clearly indicated that he would advocate some form of
enforcement action by the Security Council if Council decisions
were continually defied.

8. There will be no voting.

9. But I have indicated that they must consult their Governments
before agreeing to any resolutions and this will avoid a
difficulty we might have been up against as clearly we are not in
a position to agree to any resolution without approval.