France Makes Complaints

Northern Advocate, 10 January 1948, Page 3

France Makes Complaints

West-German Plan

LONDON, Fri. (10 a.m.). The French Ambassador in London (M. Rene Massigli) complained to the Foreign Office against Britain’s failure to inform France of the six proposals for the strengthening of the bizonal Economic Council, which the British and American Commanders-in-Chief put to the German Premiers.

Reuters diplomatic correspondent, in reporting this, adds that the French Government is believed to be critical of any increase in centralisation in the British and American zones.

The Communist newspapers in Berlin have brought their heaviest broadsides to bear on the proposals directing their attack as much against the leaders of Western Germany as against the United States and Britain.

All say that the proposals mean the partition of Germany and the setting up of a separate State and Government in the West. TRAITORS The leaders of Western Germany are described as traitors who have placed themselves at the service of American and British imperialism and bartered the German people as labour slaves and serfs for alien and unrighteous ends.

At a Press conference last night both General Clay and General Robertson described the proposals as “longneeded reforms which, with the exception of foreign policy and police powers, give a free rein to the Germans to work out their own salvation.” They insisted that Frankfurt was not being established as a Western capital, but as a seat of economic and financial administration.

The other two occupation Powers, they added, would be informed at an early date of the new arrangements and invited to join them. WAVE OF STRIKES A wave of strikes has begun in the British zone as a protest against food shortages, the Essen correspondent of the Associated Press reports. He said that 50,000 workers walked out of Krupps and other factories in Essen in a general hunger strike. Eighty-five thousand Ruhr workers are now striking as a protest against j the low food rations. The Central Trades Union Council for the British zone of Germany has warned the Military Government and the North Rhine Westphalia Government that, unless urgent action is taken, the miners and transport workers will join the protest strikes. REDS FOMENT TROUBLE The Daily Telegraph’s Dusseldorf correspondent says industrial unrest is spreading in the Ruhr, in spite of the efforts of trades union leaders and other responsible Germans. There is strong evidence that the Communists are fomenting discord. It is considered more than a coincidence that strikes and token stoppages are happening at the time of the bizonal reorganisation, which the Communists oppose. RECRUITS FOR YUGOSLAVIA Up to 80 skilled German engineers, guarded by Yugoslav troops and without the special exit visas which the Allied Control Council requires, are leaving Germany each month to work in Yugoslavia, says Reuters Berlin correspondent, quoting official British sources. The Yugoslav Military Mission denies the report, but well-informed Germans confirm it. The Yugoslavs are reported to have recruited engineers in the Russian sector of Berlin.