GERMAN DISCIPLINE PREVENTS EXPLOSION

Grey River Argus, 23 May 1947, Page 5

GERMAN DISCIPLINE PREVENTS EXPLOSION

(Rec. 5.5). LONDON, May 22. The Times Dusseldorf correspondent says: Sporadic hunger demonstrations are still occurring in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Some relaxation of the tension, however, is manifest. Responsible observers were prepared for an explosion of the people’s feeling last week. That it did not occur was due to several causes. Not the least important of those was that the trade union discipline and loyalty are still strong moderating influences. Political parties of the Left have also counselled restraint, and have pointed out that strikes would not bring an additional ton of food to the under-nourished people of the Rhineland and the Ruhr. This applied equally to the Communist Party —at least it did officially..

The bread queues in the Ruhr were no shorter yesterday than they were a week ago. But hope i-s now rather stronger, and hope is as great and urgent a need as food itself. Trade union and other leaders feel that the essential purpose of calling the world’s attention to the worsening misery of the people of a large part of Western Germany has- been served, and probably their satisfaction is shared by the general community. There is a disposition, in some quarters, to link the people’s demonstrations with the American decision to expedite the dispatch of food ships to German ports-. But this line of reasoning has serious, and even sinister, implications, and, at the moment, not many of the Germans, hard as their lot is, are prepared to believe that the greater the pressure—by way of strikes and of demonstrations —the more they are likely to receive from abroad.