Warning On Creating Divisions In Europe

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 13

Warning On Creating Divisions In Europe

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, February 13. After the failure of th? Brussels negotiations, Britain should try ‘‘other doors” to get into the Common Market “before there is an effort to break into Europe through the windows,” the “Washington Post” said today.

The newspaper also cautioned the United States against a policy “that is destructive and divisive of the very European unity we seek.”

Commenting on the speech by the British Prime Minister (Mr Macmillan) in the House of Commons in the Common Market debate, the newspaper said: “If his speech in the House is correctly understood. Great Britain intends, before its entry, to form with the five other members of the Common Market a working alliance” to oppose the idea of the new Europe put forward by the French President “If such a purpose becomes clearly revealed, surely it can only tend to confirm the suspicions of de Gaulle about British motives. “There is a danger that the other countries of the West may assume prematurely that there is no way of reconciling de Gaulle’s view of the West with the view of the ‘Five’ and with the views of the United States and Great Britain," it said. General de Gaulle’s press conference on January 18 “dosed one door on the kind of arrangements this country and Greet Britain would like to see made, but it did not close all doors. “Other doors should be tried before there is an effort to break into Europe through the windows. Only when it is evident that all doors are dosed should Great Britain and this country turn to extreme measures of their own," it said. The newspaper said it would be a mistake “to embark upon a policy that is destructive and divisive of the very European unity we “Dp we reaHy wish to line up the Germans against the

French? Do we wish to risk the revival of the old nationalistic fervours snd animosities that led to 1870, to 1914 and to 1939? Do we desire to do this in the name of European and Western unity?” the “Washington Post” asked.

In London, the “Daily Telegraph” said all Commonwealth Governments had agreed to Mr Macmillan's proposal for a meeting of Trade Ministers in London. The newspaper’s Commonwealth affairs correspondent, R. H. C. Steed, said most Commonwealth Governments had already sent acceptances. The rest were “assumed” to be on the way. The proposal seemed to have been sent out rather hurriedly by the British Government only a few days ago. Presumably It was not until then that the Government had decided what to do next after being shut out of the Common Market, said ths Yesterday. British newsSpen generally felt Mr icmillan had provided no clear plan In his speech. The "Guardian” said: “The measures now proposed by the Prime Minister sre frankly presented as secondbest improvisations to tide over what be hopes win be an interim period until the obstacles to a true European union are removed.” The "Financial Times" said: “In detailed terms, Mr Macmillan did not tell us where we go from here because he does not know .. ." The “Dally Mirror” said: "Mr Msrm It lee’s Commons

oration was an exercise in negation and alibi—and. most pathetically, in self-delusion . . . The urgency of the matter is that the British public is sick find tired of pomp and incompetence at the top.”