WEST GERMAN STATE

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25797, 7 May 1949, Page 7

WEST GERMAN STATE

“Rapid Progress To Agreement” BONN ASSEMBLY SPEEDS WORK (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) BERLIN, May 6. The British Military Governor (General Sir Brian Robertson), in a prepared statement on his policy in Germany which had received the authority of the British Foreign Secretary (Mr Ernest Bevin), said to-day that agreement to set up a Western Federal Republic in Germany would “proceed rapidly.” General Robertson left no doubt that the inclusion of the Eastern zone in a united German administration, although desirable, could occur only on the basis of the fundamentals laid down in the Bonn Constitution. The Bonn Constituent Assembly’s main committee last night completed the adoption of a draft Constitution for the West German State. Even the hotly-disputed articles on the relations of Church and schools were adopted by an overwhelming majority, after farreaching amendments, moved by representatives of the Christian Democrat Party, had been rejected. The only important change was the adoption of a motion to abolish the death penalty. The draft is now expected to be submitted to a plenary session of the Assembly to-day. Its formal and final adoption may be completed by this evening. The draft Constitution was originally agreed upon by a delegation from the Bonn Assembly and the Western Military Governors at Frankfurt on April 25. Earlier yesterday, Communists in the Constituent Assembly moved that the Assembly “drop all work on a West German Constitution, and instead immediately communicate with the ComI munist-led German People’s Council to arrange an early meeting to discuss common German interests.”

The Communists said that the Allied agreement to lift the Berlin blockade and call a four-Power conference had opened the way to German unity, and had made a Western Constitution superfluous. The Assembly’s main committee rejected the motion without a debate. The committee passed in a threehour session nine of the 11 chapters of the draft Constitution.

One factor speeding up yesterday’s work was a Berlin report that General Robertson had said that an agreement with Russia at the forthcoming fourPower conference might lead the Allies to request constitutional changes to facilitate the participation of the Eastern States. After a hurried meeting of the German party leaders, the President of the Bonn'Assembly (Dr. Konrad Adenauer) and lhe Socialist Party’s leader (Professor Carlo Schmid) said that, while they did not believe the report, the situation evidently required that the Assembly should produce a final result as quickly as possible.