14 Countries Need Aid

Northern Advocate, 8 September 1947, Page 4

14 Countries Need Aid

The State Department in a secret report has advised the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that at least 14 European nations must have outside economic aid to recover from the war and in some cases to fight the threat of Communist domination, says the New York Herald-Tri-bune correspondent. Although the report does not say so directly, the implication is clear that the aid must come from the United States.

The report gives a warning that Britain is no longer an equal member of the Big Three and that the United States must help her out of her grave financial crisis.

The prospects for a free democratic Germany are fading, the report says, and Eastern Germany is well on the way toward being Sovietised. France is in severe danger from a powerful Communist Party and Western Europe, with France as its hub, is at the crossroads.

The report is a survey of the political conditions and economic recovery problems of 19 nations, of which it is estimated that only five—Eire, Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland and Norway—may be able to get along without economic help.

In the other 14 countries aid is sorely needed, the report says, and in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland,' Greece, Turkey, Sweden, France and Italy it is required to offset Communist pressure.

The report accuses Russia of playing an obstructive role throughout Europe but particularly in Germany and Austria.

Of Mr Attlee it says that “his leadership and the Labour Government’s life will depend on whether the lost ground can now be retrieved by the assertion of leadership and the introduction of measures sufficiently drastic to meet the present crisis. “Under the British Parliamentary system the Government is immediately responsive to public opinion and a general election can be held at any time.”

Dealing with France, it says: “General de Gaulle’s frankly totalitarian concepts have irrevocably alienated organised labour, both Communist and non-Communist. , “Consequently his only firm adherents now are the discredited men of the Right and his chances of a successful comeback are considered slight so long as constitutional government prevails in France.”