The Press THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1947. Yes or No in Paris?

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25226, 3 July 1947, Page 6

The Press THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1947. Yes or No in Paris?

The reports on the Foreign Ministers’ discussion in Paris, gaining definition from Mr Bevin’s statement and the Tass Agency account of Mr Molotov’s proposals, now show clearly enough what stands in the way of agreement. The phrasing of the Russian Note of acceptance foreshadowed it, indeed. General Marshall proposed a “ European “ programme ”, a concerted economic effort “ to place Europe on “ its feet the Russians spoke of help for “ European countries Slight as the verbal distinction was or appeared to be, it corresponds with a critical and perhaps insuperable difference between the proposals that have emerged. Russia wishes every country to submit its requirements independently to a central committee and sub-commit-tee organisation, the representation of the three major Powers being constant and that of the other European nations varied ad hoc; it wishes the central committee to prepare a “free” (general? flexible?) programme of aid from these estimates, find out how much of it the United States is ready to fulfil, and “ assist the European countries ” to obtain their quota accordingly. Mr Bevin was of course quite right in saying at once that, without further knowledge of American intentions than “ published statements ” afford, these proposals must be unacceptable to Washington. 'jftie working principle of the Marshall plan is American support for a cooperative effort to reconstruct the European economy; it writes finis to the piecemeal policy of aid now here, now there, now in dollars, now in kind. It calls for an overall plan, showing not what separate countries want to work out their own reconstruction plans but what is wanted to complete and speed an over-all reconstruction plan, each contributing and each receiving, and where it can be most efficiently supplied. The most obvious hole in Mr Molotov’s set of proposals is that they do not provide for a statement of what any country can do. Less obviously, but hardly less certainly, they appear not to provide for Germany. But if anything is axiomatic, it is that a concerted effort to reconstruct the economy of Europe must provide first and foremost for the reconstruction of the Ruhr. Steel and coal are top priorities. Europe’s steel production, pre-war, exceeded 50,000,000 tons; it'is now less than 30,000,000 tons. The gap is largely the Ruhr gap. Germah steel production is now a seventh of what it was before the war. If the French Monnet plan succeeds, it will produce 7,000,000 tons more—by 1950; if British plans succeed, they will produce .4,000,000 tons more—by 1952. The great and swift expansion of steel output that Europe needs is possible only in the Ruhr. The Marshall plan means that it can be made safe as well as possible, as the French now seem to recognise. And what the Marshall plan implies about Europe’s steel it implies about coal, timber, food, electricity, fertiliser, machines. It implies the pooling of resources and promises help to complete them. Why does Russia resist the fundamental condition? If the Tass Agency is correctly reported, because it must mean that stronger Powers would “ impose their will ” on others, violating their sovereignty; and, according to Mr Molotov himself, because the British (and French) proposals would “in“terfere with the normal post-war “ economic development of certain " European countries It is, indeed, true that countries which agreed to dress their economic programmes to some collective alignment would, to that extent, qualify their sovereignty; but there is nothing novel or alarming in that, and still less in the theory that such a process, successfully pursued, would carry them some distance towards political federation and the confidence to merge their sovereignties within it. But the bogy of a surrender of sovereignty enforced by the overbearing great Powers—raised with quaintly touching solicitude by the Kremlin—is a bogy only; and Mr Molotov, in the part of active cO-operator, could dispel it as easily as he'raises it. The real facts behind the solicitude are, probably, to be summarised something like this. Russia could not agree to take part in a contributory, co-operative plan without being required to reveal facts which it is Russia’s present policy to reserve. (The new Official Secrets Act, last month, forbade the disclosure of production figures, among others, and of any fact at all banned by the Supreme Soviet.) Again, Russian policy generally has shown a marked tendency towards a new or harder isolationism, and an increasing conviction that the best Russian strategy is to count on the collapse of western Europe and economic chaos in the • United States. Again, it has certainly been the Russian design to draw the economies of certain neighbours towards or into the Soviet system. Co-opera-tion in the Marshall plan, as Mr Bevin and Mr Bidault interpret it, therefore, would seem to Russia inconsistent with long-range political theory and strategy and with present political and economic tactics. At the same time, American aid would be welcome; and therefore, however unreasonably, it is sought on conditions less disturbing than those laid down. It does not follow that Mr Molotov will reject co-operation, if he cannot have it on his own terms, which are not co-operative at all. It still remains possible that he will compromise, far enough to stand in. The reasons for saying so are various: that there is evidence of doubts in the Kremlin over the Politburo’s reading of the western scene, that Russia has been bargaining firmly with Britain and showing some abil-

ity to export, that Poland’s new trading links with the West have been approved, and that the very plans which Russia wishes countries in Eastern Europe to develop cannot march far now without American aid. Russia is at the point of a crucial decision: to reverse the trend of her recent thinking and action or to confirm it and divide Europe, indeed the world, for ever. The balance is perhaps finer than it looks.