Salt Lake Tribune | 1908-10-11 | Page 2 | Meeting of Ministers is Only Preliminary

IK' MEETING OF MINISTERS Wk IS ONLY PRELIMINARY. VL LONDON, Oct. 10. Sir Edward Grey, Hi tho British foreign secretary, and M. Kj Iswolsky, tho "Russian minister of for-Br for-Br . eign affairs, who arrived here last night 1 from Paris, spent several hours this f afternoon discussing tho near eastern " "crisis, but did not reach a decision as to the best means of solving the queB-'. queB-'. tions involved. Officially it was stated that the meeting resolved itself into J a preliminary exchange of views and 1!) ; that the ministers were hopeful that & A ' friendly solution would be found- This Itf " the foreign office will not admit must K necessarily be by means of a conference fr ' of tho powers, as Great Britain is still L. ondeavoring to reach a settlement with-r with-r out recourse to a meeting of the signa-r signa-r tbries of the treaty of Berlin, fearing that it will be impossible to limit the ' scope of the conference and establish L . the facts upon which she and Turkey I are insisting. After the conference the I two ministers had a long talk with Sir K Charles Hardiuge. tho permanent under-If under-If , .secretary of the foreign olllcc and form- or embassador to Russia, with whom En they discussed near eastern affairs and tjy the Anglo-Russian convention. '"' King Will Receive. - , Sir Edward and M, Iswolsky will 1 " meet again tomorrow when King Ed- - Tvard will receive the Russian represents represen-ts ' tative at .Buckingham palace and later V) entertain him at dinner, and on Monday i tho discussion between the two min-J min-J isters will bo resumed at the foreign J office. The British government is in I R , receipt of advices from Belgrade that i y ' tho Servian government has taken the taj . BUggestion. or tho powers and. is doing its best to quiet the radical element in the country which is clamoring for war. The situation in the Balkans has been found to be a very delicate ono to handle, for its ramifications have been far-reaching. Sir Edward Grey had a busy day before tho arrival of M. Iswolsky, tho Greek minister being among the earlier callers. Ho presented a proposal to Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia that the matter of the Cretan proclamation of union with Greece be considered at the proposed international conference simultaneous!' with tho questions of Bulgarian independence inde-pendence and the annexation by Austria-Hungary of Bosnia and Herz-egovnia. Herz-egovnia. In the reply to his proposal, however, the Greek government was notified that until a legal status quo has been restored in the island of Crete, Great Britain cannot hold out any hope that tho Cretan, aspirations will bo granted.