Efforts To Adjust Europe's National Differences

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 15057, 18 August 1949, Page 3

Efforts To Adjust Europe's National Differences

Aim Of Council Of Europe

Right Balance Must Be

Struck

(Rec. 8.35 a.m.) London, Aug. 17. The Consultative Assembly of the: Council of Europe in Strasburg has been addressed today by Mr Herbert Morrison and Mr Winston Churchill in the debate on clcser European unity. Mr Morrison said that relations with Europe needed, unity because they shared the same economic and political problems and could only solve them together. The world's economic problems had arisen from the pattern of world trade, which had changed to the disadvantage of Europe. The main political problem was to achieve security against totalitarian encroachment.

No proposal fcr European unity could be realistic unless it was related to these urgent issues. Unified action between the diverse peoples of Europe, said Mr Morrison, could be achieved only by painstaking efforts to adjust national differences. Progress towards unity must be based on consent. Right Balance Necessary The right balance, he said, must be struck between the collective well-being of Europe and the separate interests of member countries. So far as Great Britain was concerned, this applied particularly to the ties between her and the Commonwealth, and the responsibilities which she shared with Belgium, France and the Netherlands for the welfare of other continents, notably Africa.

It was important, said Mr Morrison, that the Assembly should be realistic in its approach to the whole question. This was why he had supported a motion, put forward by British Labour representatives, calling for a commission to make a full and objective study of particular plans for the closer political union of Europe. "Let us not under-estimatc the remarkable advance already made in European co-operation," he said. Speaking later in the debate, Mr Churchill said they were engaged in creating a unit—a European unit—within the United Nations. . He hoped that in the course of time Europe would be represented on world organisation collectively, instead of by individual states. Mr Churchill said he thought the assembly was not to challenge the powers, however, that belonged to National parliaments, founded en direct suffrage. This would be premature, and detrimental to its longterm interests.

Importance Of Human Rights He agreed with Mr Morrison, that a commission, working coolly, and without haste, should investigate the various plans put forward for European unity. He added that he attached great importance to the question of human rights—the next subject for discussion on the Assembly's agenda. He said this was an urgent subject, because once the foundation of human rights had been agreed—on the lines decided upon in the United Nations—a European Court should be set up to

deal with those who violated them. Mr Churchill concluded hv discussing Germany, which he described as the greatest and most important of the auetsions before them. He said that the United Europe could not live without the help and strength of Germany. The decision on whether to admit Western Germany to the Council, of Europe should not be postponed until next year. ■ :•• He urged that the Committee of Ministers should give an assurance that they would call a special session of the Assembly in December nr .Tanuarv, after Ihe West German Federal Government had been set up. The Assembly has adjourned, a/tor finishing the debate. II will meet again tomorrow. ,-,: