MARSHALL AID

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 133, 17 March 1948, Page 3

MARSHALL AID

* Conference Completes Task EXPERTS TO DRAW UP STATUTES (N.Z.P.A. —Copyright). (Rec. 11.30 a.m.) PARIS, Mar. IG. A permanent “committee of officials” took over virtually all practical work of the Marshall Plan conference following yesterday s session, and will continue after the session to-day. The committee is expected to report favourably to the full session on four points “for organised recovery : (1) A future multilateral treaty on mutual economic aid; (2) a fully-fledged international organisation with regulai statutes; (3) Western Germany to resume her place in European economy, and (4) a Bill of particulars on what American goods Europe needs.. The conference ended after directing" its experts to draw up statutes of the permanent International Organisation and articles of the treaty to bind it. The conference voted unanimously for representatives of the AngloAmerican and French zones in Germany to be independent members of the committee for reconstruction. The occupation authorities,, with the assistance of “competent officials, presumably German,. will represent the. ZOII6S. Mr Ernest Bevin, in a closing speech, said the fate of Europe and the world would be decided by the intensity ol their work in the next few months. “The war against poverty and want will be won. We must go into immediate action as soon as the European reconstruction programme is decided. The correspondent of the Associated American Press says that the experts will continue their work in closed meetings, and will only periodically ielease their decisions. A report oil progress so far will be submitted to the United States Government: for consideration in conne--tion with the Marshall aid programme. The conference took no action on a Portuguese proposal to include Spain. Portugal's. Foreign Minister, Da Mata, had urged the conference to consider the admission of Spain to the work of European construction “at the opportune moment.” He added that Spain had great agricultural resources, and had made many contributions to European culture.