BELGIUM’S DEMANDS ON GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25090, 23 January 1947, Page 7

BELGIUM’S DEMANDS ON GERMANY

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, January 21. A Belgian memorandum presented to the Foreign Ministers’ deputies seeks a reduction of the German and an augmentation of the Belgian fleet on the Rhine, the creation of a canal between the Rhine and the Danube linking with the waterways of western Germany and Belgium, and the prolongation of the option given Belgium by the Versailles Treaty for linking the Rhine and the Schelde rivers.

The Belgian Foreign Minister (Mr Spaak), speaking in Brussels to-day, said that the least reparations from Germany which would satisfy Belgium were the following deliveries of goods annually for 40 years: 6.600.000 metric tons of coal, 750,000.000 kilowatts of electrical power, 1,000,000 tons of lignite. 300,000 tons of industrial salt, 80,000 tons of common salt, 500,000

cubic metres of wood, and about 100.000 tons of chemicals. Belgium wanted Germany organised as a federation of states with central power limited to economic problems. Belgium was not satisfied with the procedure at the London talks on Germany. She wanted to participate. Meanwhile. Switzerland has been informed through diplomatic channels that the Allies are preparing an earnest request that Switzerland should help Austria financially in the work of reconstruction, says the Berne correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Agency. He quotes the leading Swiss newspaper, “Neue Zuercher Zeitung,” as saying that the request will be bluntly rejected. He adds that Switzerland has spent hundreds of millions of francs on Europe’s rehabilitation already and that further credits are impossible to Austria, whose industrial capacity has been severely damaged by the extraction of reparations.

VIEWS OF SMALLER ALLIES

The Foreign Ministers’ deputies failed to decide on a procedure for hearing the smaller Allies on the German treaty, and it is now expected that Australia will be heard alone on January 23, ssys Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent. The British, French, and United States delegates, while making no concrete proposals, suggested that the smaller Allies should be consulted if possible at all stages of the preparation of the German treaty, but Mr Gusev (Russia), while agreeing that consultation with the other Allies was of great importance, emphasised that it was the Big Four Foreign Ministers who were preparing the draft. During the discussions, the United States delegate (Mr Robert Murphy) suggested that because preparation of the treaty would be a long process,

an interim “ititernational statute” should be devised until the final treaty was concluded. Such a statute might be imposed or submitted to a referendum of the German people or accepted by the German party leaders or by a provisional government. Mr Murphy pointed out that the conclusion of the final treaty would imply a contract with a central German Government. Sir William Strang (Britain) said that some interim arrangement might well be necessary, though one part of such an arrangement might well be found in the existing provisions for Allied control. Mr Gusev was critical of the suggestion and he sought further clarification. The discussion ended without formal proposals or decisions.