WEST EUROPEAN TALKS ON UNIONEND IN TREATY

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 March 1948, Page 5

WEST EUROPEAN TALKS ON UNIONEND IN TREATY

(Recd. 11.10 a.m.) BRUSSELS, March 12. The English text of a communique issued after the Western Union conference in Brussels used the term defence, not mutual assistance,” as the French version was translated. The Moscow newspaper Izvestia called the Western Union pact a “plot against peace in Europe.” A Tass Agency despatch from Brussels reported that the pact draft provided for the reorganisation of armies and the standardisation of armaments.

The five-Power Western European treaty talks ended today with the issue of a short official statement, but full details of the treaty will not be announced until after it has been signed next Wednesday by the Foreign Ministers of Britain, France, and the Benelux countries, according to the Brussels correspondent of The Times. Political Aim The treaty’s political aim, says the correspondent, is to organise the security of Western Europe so that the democratic traditions which the five countries have in common are safeguarded. There will also be reference to the importance of human Tights. The economic clause, he adds, deals with the interests of the five countries and their overseas territories. Ger-, many’s part in the European economic system wiU' be defined'at next week’s Paris conference on the Marshall Plan proposal. Winding up the foreign affairs debate in the French National Assembly last night, the Foreign Minister (M. Bidault) referrred to accu-

sations that a Western bloc was being set up against other nations of the Continent, says the Paris correspondent of The Times. He said that there existed at present 15 treaties of mutual asistance in Central and Eastern Europe. Service of Freedom “Western Europe,” M. Bidault added, “in the service of freedom has the right to do what has been done elsewhere —not against others, but like others.” The characteristics of recent developments in Rumania, Bulgaria, vakia were extremely similar, said M. Bidault, and added: “We do not like them.” There was no time to be lost in constituting what was left ol Europe.” The Government’s policy was approved by 419 votes to 183. Paying a tribute to Mr Masaryk, M. Bidault said: “Jan Masaryk, faithful to the patriotic • traditions of his father, died when freedom died.” • The Assembly expressed “fraternal greetings to the Czechoslovak democrats who are forced into silence and deprived of their essential liberties.