SIX-POWER PACT ON GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25517, 10 June 1948, Page 5

SIX-POWER PACT ON GERMANY

french Cabinet Approves DOUBTS ABOUT VOTE IN ASSEMBLY

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) 8 p.m.) LONDON, June 9. CTe French Cabinet will meet again to-day to study tertain aspects of the six-Power agreement on Germany. At its meeting yesterday it approved the agreement and .peed to submit it to a vote of confidence in thl National Assembly when the debate opens on Friday" National “The prospects of the agreement being ratified were held 0 have improved last night,” says Reuter’s Paris corresnondent, “but it was also admitted that the opposition to it, because rf its lack of any specific mi itary guarantee against Germany, might still bring on a Cabinet crisis. 3 The Paris correspondent of the “Daily Herald” savs it is generally thought that the Government will “just about scrape through.’

German leaders, representing more gan 1,000,060 Ruhr miners and metalworkers, have expressed disapproval the London agreement. Mr August Schmidt, chairman of the Miners’ Union, said in Essen that the miners Jould never support any agency for the Ruhr in which the Germans had m say. Lieutenant-General Sir Gordon Macready, Regional Commissioner of Xorth Rhine-Westphalia, yesterday deaounced German complaints about internationalising the Ruhr. “They said the same after the First World War. They still say: ‘Leave B alone. German aggression will never happen again.’ I do not see

that there is any more guarantee now than then,” he said. The Prime Minister of North RhmeWestphalia (Dr. Karl Arnold) said in Dusseldorf yesterday that a meeting of the Western German Prime Ministers and the British and American Military Governors would next week discuss the new government which tne ox-Power conference proposed. Dr. Arnold said that he wanted to make it clear before the meeting that the Eastern zone must be adequately represented. British Press Comment

The London correspondent of the New Zealand Press Association says that the chief reaction of the British newspapers to the six-Power agreement is that it is sensible and is justified by the need to rehabilitate Europe He adds that French fears are appreciated, but it is felt that the safeguards to the plan are formidable “The Times” says that the Western Powers have made substantial progress in framing a common policy and that the recommendations offer a totement of principles and procedure of greater importance for the future cf Germany than any other comparable document since the Potsdam agreement. The most striking in the communique, it says, are those prodding for security against a renewal of German aggression. There will be no withdrawal of the British. AmeriFrench forces from Germany riintil the peace of Europe is secured ” oor win a withdrawal take place nvithout prior consultation.” n L ost * mme diately interesting pan, ana one which bears directly

J?„JJ‘ e r. n 2? d secu rity against reSon d oF s A re& < th . is th e institu- ™ S, ter “ a t 1 9“al control in the and steel dlstrlbution of coal, coke. The successful application of the thfnkinS nt caU J or continued hard £ ood Wiu - sa - vs . tt believes that the iFy aMfd r °to S |b nS mnitar y secur■iS ad „ to the wider measures for E"° p recovery, of which the agree. f . orms an integral part, should g° f SiniOT rdS reassurin S French puba2rpmSi^Tde6raph v, describes the k f enj ?ihle Plan,” and says that the beginning of the task SL, rel ? oul< Ji ng and rebuilding some sort Of a Germany is long overdue, Ot “definitely remain a j? nd ,S £ sca r e =rows and rubbish heaps." it adds. In spite of the severe critiemerging in- Paris, the recommendations seem, on the whole, sensible and practical.’ l Concessions to France Tne Daily Telegraph” regards the f aarant ? ed „ Presence of American £° ops . *5 Germa "y a® an answer to French fears on security, and it observes. that the French had their way pp international control of the dislh bu £ o ’?< of H ? hr Products, and on , dec l slpn that the future government 0{ Germany is to be federal with a constituent assembly preceding any government at all “ Ju er ? f ?v rc - the French Communists talk of the proposals as being defeat they, as usual, are truth” the eXaCt opposite of ‘‘he

?-. ad ?. s: “ The Present French political situation would probably never have 2“ arre A had ?°‘A r . Bidault, for once, at l ault . ! n felling to enlist prior fnnESI 1 < for hla P oll ey with sufficient information and tact. . J he Herald” does not conH de O HH the -X rench „ anxieties Justified. It ad , ds: 7 S e u Un t ty of all Germany remains, as it has been for three years, the objective of the Western Powers A change of policy in Moscow would anihusiastically welcomed by the West. Meanwhile, decisive meaSi re iL*? r E / uro s e ’ s rehabilitation can no longer be delayed and, in those measures, it is essential that the Western zones of Germany should plav th<? Xides.” WhiCh the a fe-Powe P r ay