There has been little preliminary work on the Conference to report in the past few days with most of the visitors preoccupied with Wimbledon, Lords and the Canada Cup.

2. There has been some discussion of plans for the meetings, with emphasis on the desirability of encouraging more free discussion and fewer set speeches. The agenda remains pretty much as indicated. We have been told that it [is] most unlikely that the subject of the Gold Coast will be discussed during the period on July 4 reserved for Commonwealth constitutional questions, but that this period is being retained under this heading as it is expected that Ceylon will raise the subject of its constitutional plans.

3. The Prime Minister of Pakistan called on Mr. St-Laurent yesterday, and he and I lunched with Mr. Nehru, Mrs. Pandit and Krishna Menon. Later in the day the Prime Minister called on Sir Anthony Eden.

4. Mohammad Ali spoke to the Prime Minister about Kashmir but left the impression that he did not intend to raise the subject during the conference but hoped that others might do so. He also mentioned Warsak and expressed their considerable satisfaction with the attitude which had been shown by the Canadians in the discussions last week in Ottawa.¹ He emphasized his interest in the subject and his belief in the importance of our working together in understanding. Sir Anthony Eden also referred to Kashmir but did not specifically ask the Prime Minister to intervene, though undoubtedly he hopes that Mr. St-Laurent will use his influence with Nehru if the opportunity presents itself. It looks as if this subject will be played very much by ear and will be pursued only if an occasion ripens. (Last night Eden told me that he intends to raise the matter with Nehru today. He will then probably discuss it separately with Mohammad Ali and after these separate talks will decide whether it is worth while to try to get the two parties together with himself and possibly Mr. St-Laurent present. Last night in conversation at Buckingham Palace the Pakistan Foreign Minister made a strong plea to me for talks of some kind on Kashmir. He said the Pakistan Government would be reasonable and compromising if only discussions could begin. Contrary to reports from Karachi (Scott's telegram 209?) the subject of Kashmir was not raised at all with Mr. Nehru.)

5. Mr. Nehru spoke a good deal about Soviet policy at lunch on Tuesday. He feels strongly that the Russian leaders are very anxious to establish better relations and that the Western Powers are not doing enough to meet them. We took the opportunity to explain to him something of present thinking in NATO. He said that NATO had served a very useful purpose when it was established and he had had no objection to it. However, he doubted whether it had any role to play in present circumstances. He said that Western leaders were over- emphasizing conflict with the Communists. We had simply shifted from talking about military conflict to economic conflict. What we should talk about was means of cooperation and of ending the Cold War. He spoke also about the Colombo Plan, and seemed to think that we had reached a very satisfactory basis for arranging and providing assistance.

L.B. PEARSON