NATIONALISED PLANTS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 149, 21 December 1945, Page 7

NATIONALISED PLANTS

BRITISH TO BE TRUSTEES

LONDON, December 20,

The expropriation of the entire property of the coal mines and steel plants of the Ruhr by the British occupation authorities which is soon, to take place, reports the "Manchester Guardian's" diplomatic correspondent, might be loosely described as nationalisation. Direction and ownership will pass from the German companies and their management to the British authorities, to be held in trust until the future of the Ruhr is finally decided. Management appointed by the British will no doubt take the place of the present German personnel.

' The process differs considerably, from the nationalisation that is' being carried out in the Russian zone. There State control is being put into force piecemeal and holdings handed over to the German provincial administrations. " ,

The Ruhr plan applies to the'area as a whole, with control vested in the occupying Power in lieu of a State which has yet to be denned. The door is thus *^ft open for any subsequent international project, if such should be agreed upon in future. The first indication of British intentions was the rbusi3-up at the beginning < of December of a large number of Nazi industrialists . in the Ruhr. Accused of supporting their presence too long, British authorities' had been more or less obliged to tolerate it in their early dilemma of getting industry going at all. The sudden wide-scale arrests were a sign that this uneasy period was