HEAVY INDUSTRY PLAN FOR EUROPE

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26129, 3 June 1950, Page 7

HEAVY INDUSTRY PLAN FOR EUROPE

French Reply To British Note Causes Crisis CONFERENCES HELD IN LONDON (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, June 2. A first-class crisis has been precipitated by France’s ren'y to the latest British Note on the conditions- under wh en Mr Attlee s Government would take part in the proposed negotiations for the European coal and steel pool, says the diplomatic correspondent of Reuter. The French Note, which was delivered to the British Ambassador, Sir Oliver Harvey, in P?ris last night, was at cnee dispatched to London where it formed the subject of a series of late night conferences. France's reply is understood to have been communicated immediately to the Foreign Secretary (Mr Ernest Eevin) who is now in a London clinic waiting to undergo an operation. It is also being studied by the Minister of State (Mr Kenneth Younger) and Foreign Office chiefs concerned with the heavy industry pool plan recently put forward by the French Foreign Minister (Mr Robert Schuman). In London diplomatic quarters it is understood that the British Note delivered in Paris yesterday morning proposed an alternative declaration to be made by the British Government but that this still did not meet the French requirements. In view of this, the French Government replied last night with a Note announcing a decision to go ahead to-day on the basis of the declaration already agreed with West Germany, Belgium, Holland. Luxembourg and Italy.