GERMAN CROP PROSPECTS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25244, 24 July 1947, Page 7

GERMAN CROP PROSPECTS

GOOD REPORTS FROM BRITISH ZONE

INDUSTRIAL PICTURE “GLOOMY”

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON. July 23. “After the afflictions of last year's grim winter, Germany so far has been blessed with a fair summer, and reports from the British zone show that the crops will be good.” says the Berlin correspondent of “The Times.” “Barley has already been cut and rye is in process of being cut and the harvesting of wheat has beguv. Early and mid-early potatoes are being lifted, and in some districts the yield is expected to be 30 per cent, above last year. “There is thus every prospect that agricultural production will be up to reasonable expectations and perhaps a little above.

“But, against this comparatively bright picture, there has to be set industry’s failure to revive. The latest report of the British Control Commission is gloomy. During June, it says, industrial production snowed ‘no real increases and gives little cause for optimism.’

“There can be no hope of a revival with the present supplies of coal and power, which, the report says, are insufficient even for maintenance of essential services and basic industries.”

JEWS SENT BACK FROM HAIFA

PROBLEM FOR FRENCH GOVERNMENT

VILLEFRANCHE ASKS FOR MORE POLICE UNITS

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, July 23. The French Government will to-day decide what to do with the 4500 illegal Jewish immigrants from the President Warfield, who are being brought back to Villefranche and are expected to arrive to-night or to-morrow. The Colombian Ambassador in Paris has denied that the immigrants had a “collective visa” to enter Colombia. The affair is causing considerable embarrassment to the French Foreign Office, because the President Warfield left France after repeated uquests by the British Government that the immigrants should be detained. The French Government is also faced with the prospect of having 4500 discontented Jews on its hands for some time. The Haganah’s European headquarters has informed the French Government that the immigrants have taken a solemn oa.h never to disembark in Europe. “They will resist any attempt to land them in France,” the statement declared. The authorities at Villefranche have asked tor extra police units. The Paris correspondent of Reuters says it is learned that the British Navy is keeping a close watch for two ships which are waiting at the French port of Bayonne for a chance to slip through, the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean to pick up more illegal Jewish immigrants for Palestine. The vessels are the Northlands, of 1275 tons, and the converted corvette, Pahducha. both flying the Panamanian flag. The Northlands belongs to the Westlands Trading Company, of New York, which has bought vessels from ship-breakers which were afterwards used to take Jews to Palestine. The Pahducha is owned by the Montrose Shipping Company, of New York. Every effort will be made to prevent the vessels from landing imipif»rents in Palestine and. if intercepted, the passengers will be sent back to the European ports where they embarked.

MORE FIGHTING IN JERUSALEM

POLICE BARRACKS AGAIN ATTACKED

SABOTEURS BREACH OIL PIPELINE

LONDON, July 22. Amid gunfire, Jerusalem’s sirens this evening sounded three times. ' The Mustafsha police barracks, for the second night in succession, was under fire from rooftops opposite. The police detonated two mines nearby. Two oil bombs were thrown from behind a stpne wgll on to parked military armoured cars, which are generally used to reinforce police ana military patrols. Seven attacks were made against security forces in various parts of the city. M The casualties have not yet been officially assessed, but it is known that five Jewish citizens and one Arab were hit by bullets. One Jewish attacker was arrested. Jewish saboteurs, for the third time in 24 hours, attacked the Iraq Oil Company’s pipeline near Tiberias. They made two breaches in the line. Five armed Jews attacked the owner of a diamond factory in a crowded street in Tel Aviv to-day, struck him on the head and robbed him of diamonds worth £7OOO. which he carried in his pockets. A jeweller’s shop in another part of Tel Aviv was shortly afterwards robbed of £3OOO worth of diamonds.

JEWISH MIGRATION TO PALESTINE

OPPOSITION EXPRESSED BY ARAB STATES LONDON, July 22. Hamid Frangieh, the Lebanese Foreign Minister, speaking for Egyot, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, to-day demanded before the United Nations Commission on Palestine the immediate cessation of Jewish immigration to Palestine and the establishment of an independent Arab government. Hamid Frangieh declared that Jewish terrorism might provoke other nationalist organisations to repel Zionist aggression and introduce elements of violence and insecurity, thus jeopardising the position of the Jews in the Arab world. The Arabs would make any separate Jewish state in Palestine a political and economic ghetto. “The Arabs cannot admit partition and the establishment of a Jewish state in the heart of the Arab world, splitting it in two” he said.

SOUTH AFRICA DRAWS WITH YORKSHIRE

LONDON. July 22. The South African cricketers’ match against Yorkshire ended in a draw. Yorkshire in i f s first innings made 308 (Hutton 137, Rowan four for 39, Smith five for 105). South Africa made 279 and 147 for three. N.Z. Dancers’ Success.—The Royal Academy of Dancing’s annual gold medal tests for students were both won this year by New Zealanders. Rowena Jackson won the girls’ section, and Brian Ashbridy the boys’ section. It is the first time that both medals have been won by overseas students. They are not awarded automatically every year, but only if the required standard is reached.-r London, July 22.