SOVIET POLICIES OPPOSED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25304, 2 October 1947, Page 7

SOVIET POLICIES OPPOSED

AUSTRIAN MINISTERS’ SPEECHES COMMUNIST AGITATION INCREASING (N.Z. Press Association-Copyright) (Rec. 8.20 p.m.) LONDON, October 1. “A series of remarkably outspoken speeches by Austrian Ministers, notably by the Foreign Minister (Dr. Gruber), during the last tew days has placed the Austrian Government squarely on record as being opposed to the policies of the* Soviet Union,” says the Vienna correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph.” “These pronouncements have come at a time Gt* growing Communist agitation within Austria. “The public is overwhelmingly antiCommunist, but , there are fears that Austria, with Communist-dominated states on three sides, is about to become a target for mounting Soviet pressure. “Dr. Gruber, who is at present on a tour of the. Tyrol, declared in one speech that an attempt was being made to force Austria into a political combination which would cut her off completely from the West, In another, he attacked Russia’s stand on the problem of German assets in Austria apd deplored her exploitation of Austrian oil resources. “Austria did not intend to come under any domination, either from the East or West,” he added. OIL REFINERY IN AUSTRIA REMOVAL OF EQUIPMENT BY RUSSIANS (Pec. 7 p.m.) VIENNA, September 30. A Canadian oil expert, Colonel Keith van Sickle, said that the Russians were taking valuable British oilmining machinery from the British and American-owned refinery at Lobau, which the Russians seized on August 5 as a German asset for the settlement of -reparations claims. Colonel van Sickle*added that during August the Russians had repeatedly attempted to dismantle end remove the drilling outfit, a derrick worth more than £50,000, and other valuable material. Workers at the wells had prevented the attempts, but then the Soviet officer in control had ordered the dismantling and removal of equipment by force. ,