LORD PAKENHAM IN RUHR

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25327, 29 October 1947, Page 7

LORD PAKENHAM IN RUHR

DISMANTLING PLAN DISCUSSED

“ GERMAN ATTITUDE NOT MOLLIFIED ”

(Rec. 10 JP LONDON, October 20. The Gorman attitude towards the Bew. dismantling plan in the combined British-American zone has not beep mollified by exhortations on the* subject delivered by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Pakenhamr during his week-end discussions with the political and trade union leaders of the Ruhr,” says the Berlin correspondent of “The Times.” “It is a measure of the political reawakening of western Germany that the dismantling has become a major issue, the first lo emerge clearly since the occupation began, and although the criticism opened on a cautiously moderate note there is every indication that opposition to the plan is hardening steadily. “The German Economic Council at Frankfurt is preparing a declaration on the subject for Wednesday, and this is bound to be influenced by the apparent contradiction between Lord Pakenham’s firm declaration that the dismantling plan reflected the British Cabinet’s unalterable policy and the statement by visiting members of the United States Senate Appropriations Committee that the digmOPtling of German factories was sheer folly. “Rightly or wrongly, the German hope is strengthening that the plan as it touches anything but war plants will not in fact be implemented.”