DEBATE ON COUP IN PRAGUE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25448, 20 March 1948, Page 7

DEBATE ON COUP IN PRAGUE

SECURITY COUNCIL HEARING

“HARDLY LIKELY TO BE DECISIVE ” (N.Z. Press Association-Copyright)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, March 19. ‘‘The Security Council’s debate on Czechoslovakia next week is hardly likely to be either decisive or instructive,” says “The Times” in a leading article. “The free peoples of the world have already learned the lesson of the Prague coup, which stripped away the last illusions about the Communists and their tactics, and it is hard to see what the Security Council can add to the story. “With its limited function the Council is not fitted to deal either with the wider- clash of ideologies or with the deeper threat, to the Western heritage while that threat is not expressed in terms of open force. ‘‘The Western answer comes far more resolutely and far more effectively as the nations unite to build up their political and economic stability and to defend themselves and their institutions against all forms of attack.”

There was a quiet, cold terror in Czechoslovakia, said Mr Richard Crossman, the Labour member of Parliament for Coventry East, after a visit to Czechoslovakia.

The Czech Communists had got hold of the working classes and the police. “They gained power first by a coalition -ana then by eliminating the coalition,” he said. “It is not a Russian occupation. It is. pretty like the Tito set-up in Jugoslavia.” He had been told that many people would be tried for military espionage. The Government played up to the working class all the time. The middleclasses either sullenly or actively opposed the regime and a number of people would be prepared to do anything, POLITICAL ARRESTS IN GERMANY REPORTED MOVE BY COMMUNISTS (Rec. 7 p.m.) BERLIN, March 18. . Socialist newspapers report that the Russian and German Communists are staging a new wave of arrests of nonCommunist German politicians in the Soviet zone. The “Telagraf” says that the purge is aimed chiefly at Christian Democrats and Liberal Democrats in Halle, where 32 industrial leaders and public officials have been arrested in the last few days. SUPPORT FOR GREEK GUERRILLAS FORCE “POISED IN THE BALKANS” (Rec. 7.) WASHINGTON. March 18. Reports from Athens to the State Department to-day say that three ‘‘lnternational Brigade” divisions are poised in the Balkans for an attack across the border into Greece. The reports estimate the strength of the force about 30,000 men. • Officials said that there was evidence of Russian overall military direction of the rebel campaign in Greece, but they doubted whether the International Brigade had Russian tactical officers. REPARATIONS FROM AUSTRIA , BIG FOUR’S TALKS IN LONDON LONDON, March 18. When the Big Four’s deputies foj* Austria m€t again in London to-day, Russia lowered the Soviet lump sum claim from Austria from 200,000,000 to 175,000,000 dollars. The British delegate said that he was prepared to consider 100,000,000 dollars in 10 years if Austria could pay. The French delegate suggested increasing the sum to 115,000,000 dollars from Austrian assets in the former enemy countries of Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary. The Russian delegate said that he was willing ,to reduce the percentage of Austrian oil production rights which Russia was claiming from 66 2-3 to 64. The United States and France were prepared to concede 40 per cent.