MOVE FOR PEACE

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28231, 20 March 1957, Page 13

MOVE FOR PEACE

Suggestion By Mr Gaitskell

(Rec. 8 p.m.) BERLIN, March 18.

The Leader of the British Labour Party, Mr Hugh Gaitskell, tonight called on the West to launch a peace offensive and urged the creation of a neutral zone in Central Europe. Lecturing in the Berlin Free University at the invitation of the Ernst Reuter Cultural Society, Mr Gaitskell said that Russia was at present not likely td consider the neutral zone plan, but she might change her mind later.

He did not think a full return to Stalinism was likely in spite of the recent swing back in that direction. “It is time we launched our own peace offensive,” he said. “It must be a genuine one, however, as I believe the neutral zone plan to be.

“We need not fear a new relaxed atmosphere.

“On the contrary, experience has shown that while there has been some weakening in the unity of the West since the Soviet developed the tactic of co-existence the effects behind the Iron Curtain have been far greater.”

Icebergs in Atlantic.—Big icebergs cause the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth to veer 38 miles south of the regular southern track across the North Atlantic. Commodore Sir Ivan Thompson, master of the liner, said that the descent of Arctic ice upon the Newfoundland coast had been earlier and heavier than at any time for perhaps 50 years.—New York. March 18.