Britain Is Willing To Link With European Economic Organisation

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 March 1948, Page 5

Britain Is Willing To Link With European Economic Organisation

(Recd. 10.15 a.m.) LONDON, March 15. The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Ernest Bevin, opened the conference in Paris this afternoon of the 16 nations who will receive United States aid under the Marshall Plan. Mr Bevin said that Britain was willing- to participate in permanent machinery for European economic co-operation. The traditional friendship between the United Kingdom and the other British Commonwealth countries would be maintained, however. The British Government could not see any grounds for conflict in that field. Mr Bevin said that two wars had meant for Europe nearly 30 years of struggle, interwoven with economic disorder. They would not have been doing their duty if they had refused to give a constructive answer to the United States offer of aid.

Mr Bevin said that while Marshall aid has been the subject of long investigation and protracted debate in the United States, the 16 European nations attending the conference had been striving to lay the foundations of recovery. They had many handicaps and difficulties to surmount, but he was more hopeful now .than at any time during or since the war. Food and Raw Materials Mr Bevin continued: “The progress report to the conference emphasises that we cannot prevent the deterioration of our economics unless we obtain in the near future food and raw materials from the dollar areas.” Mr Bevin said the conference would establish what he called “the continuing organisation.” This organisation would seek, first, to build up European production and exports; secondly, to reduce the dollar deficit; thirdly, to reduce European trade barriers and suggest improved clearing arrangements within Europe; and fourthly, to promote European economic and social well-being. Mr Bevin said that Britain and France would propose that the three Western German zones should be associated with the plan. Mr Bevin added that, if Germany was associated with the plan, Germany’s products and markets would help European recovery. France and Germany The French Foreign Minister, M. Bidault, addressing the conference, said that Europe for the time being

was reduced to 16 countries, but he again invited Eastern Europe to collaborate in European reconstruction. He said that Germany must take hei’ place in the universe to be rebuilt, but at present she must be represented at the conference by the delegates of the Allied occupation commanders. “The resources of this industrious, persevering nation should be associated with the reconstruction we have undertaken.” he said.