NEXT TALK WITH MOLOTOV: MOSCOW PRESS COMMENT

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 August 1948, Page 5

NEXT TALK WITH MOLOTOV: MOSCOW PRESS COMMENT

(Recd. 2 p.m.) , LONDON, August 15. The British United Press correspondent at Moscow says that the three Western envoys today discussed the agenda for their next meeting with Mr Molotov. j- - The Soviet armed forces are being kept in a state or readiness in view of the international situation and the “expansionist policy of American imperialism,” declared the Moscow Communist newspaper, Pravda. , Pravda added that the visits of American naval squadrons to various parts of the world illustrated this policy, as well as America’s “impudent interference in other countries domestic affairs.

“The Soviet people are vitally interested in a solid, lasting peace,” said a leader in the Communist Party newspaper, Pravda, quoted by the Moscow radio on the occasion of Soviet Navy Day. The newspaper said the Red Navy had no aggressive aims. It existed to protect the Soviet people’s peaceful work and security, whereas the visits of American naval squadrons to foreign countries “are among the many illustrations of America’s expansionist policy of imperialism and its impudent interference in the domestic affairs of other countries.” Sections of the Western-sponsored German press are complaining that France is stripping the French occu-

pation zone and suggest intervention by Britain and the United States, says the Associated Press correspondent at Berlin. The critics assert that the French zone will be pauperised at the present rate. . One State Government m the French zone has protested against the new factory dismantling programme and a one-day protest strike was staged. „ , The British-licensed Telegraf claims that the French took 49 per cent, of the meat production from the French zone, commandeered 30 per cent, of the manufactured products and took huge cuttings of timber in addition to heavy industrial reparations.