AMERICAN LOANS TO GERMANY OPPOSED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25247, 28 July 1947, Page 7

AMERICAN LOANS TO GERMANY OPPOSED

SOCIALIST UNITY PARTY ISSUES STATEMENT

<R ™ C - BERLIN, July 26. The Socialist Unity Party issued a statement in Berlin opposing the American loans to Germany on the ground that such credits would force industrial Western Germany into a Western bloc, which would be dangerous to peace. The party urged that Germany should strive for an economy evolved through her own powers, and that foreign aid should be accepted only on a short term basis when a German Government was established.

The party advocated a recovery Sian envisaging the immediate estabshment of German central administrative agencies, confiscation, and socialisation of major industries, a voice for the workers in production, and the immediate drafting of an allGerman economic plan to increase production. It also urged that all “anti-Fascist” German political parties should- cooperate in framing joint recommendations on Germany’s future, which should be presented to the London meeting of the Foreign Ministers in the autumn. A British Foreign Office spokesman has denied Washington reports that Mr Bevin might visit Washington ip the near future. He added that he knew nothing of arrangements for a three-Power conference on German industry. He considered that exchanges between London, Paris, and Washington on this question would probably be conducted through diplomatic channels. It is officially announced in Berlin that the Ruhr coalminers will receive gift fdod parcels for increased production under a scheme which the British and American Military Governments have adopted after discussions with German officials and miners’ representatives. FREEDOM OF PRESS REPORT OF UNO COUNCIL (Rec. 7 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 27. The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations decided to' recommend to the Assembly that the world conference on freedom of information be held in Geneva on March 23. 1948. Mr Hector McNeil (Britain), supporting the council’s report for submission to the United Nations on the freedom of the press, which is opposed in many of its major aspects by Russia, declared that governments throughout the world should grant two basic rights: (1) the right of representatives of members of the United Nations to collect new® in other member State?; and (2) the right of persdns to transmit news into a country with the guarantee that it could be read freely. “When we discover a country not allowing these facilities, we might ask in terms of our Charter whether they have a right to membership of the United Nations,” he said.