POST-WAR EUROPE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25052, 16 November 1944, Page 3

POST-WAR EUROPE

POSITION OF GERMANY

CANNOT be impoverished

Stalin all along has favoured a ruthless policy in treating Germany, says an article in United States News, of Washington. Churchill is being forced by British public opinion to favour a "hard" peace. Roosevelt has overruled the United States State Department and the United States Army, and has thrown America's weight behind the idea of dealing harshly with Germany.

Russia insista upon taking 4,000,000 German youths to Russia to work in labour battalions. She wants vast reparations in the form of goods. The United States, Britain and France find their industries oppose acceptance of big payments from Germany in the form of goods. They want, instead, to try to control German industry, to dictate to the management of that industry, to tell German heavy industry what kind of goods it can make, to run Germany for many years under military occupation. The planners talk about dividing Germany int-o sones, with Russian ideas and rules to govern in ona region, British in another, United States in another. AikS it is notable that United States would get the region with least industry, with tbo most mountains. The rich Ruhr would go to the British, Silesia to Bussia. Do not bo too sure, however, that all of these present plans will materialise, that all of the things now talked about will como about and have longtime meaning. That is because Germany in normal times accounts for half of Europe's trade. An impoverished Germany, one on a sitdown strike, would mean a depressed Europe. It is still to be demonstrated that European nations aro willing to forgo tariffs, that they aro reudy to give up exchange controls, to get away from nationalism in trade any more than in politics. A healthy Europe with a sick Germany in the middle is not a type of set-up that can be brought about easily. So the chances are that, if the economic going gets rough in tho- post-war period, ways will bo found to permit Germany to seek prosperity again, and to-day's attitudes will undergo a rather sharp change.