FRENCH AIMS POST-WAR LONDON SYDNEY'S AIRPORT

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25181, 19 April 1945, Page 3

FRENCH AIMS

POST-WAR LONDON

SYDNEY'S AIRPORT

KHINELAND AREAS * PREDOMINANT- ROLE SOUGHT The French have no confidence in an international regime in the Rhineland, writes a Taris correspondent of the * New York Times. They think the conception of a Germany kept intact as a single economic unit producing for the welfare of Europe under strict control would be the ideal solution, but that s it is difficult to guarantee that the Allies would maintain such a system for any given period. * Since the French and even the Allies' observers are sceptical on this point, a less ideal but, they think, more prac- 5 tical scheme is proposed by the French —more practical because it would rest ultimately on the power and determina- ' tion of the French, who have vita! reasons for ensuring its permanence. They would separate the Rhineland : from Germany, admitting international control of what Ruhr industries remained, but placing the military con- : trol of the whole Rhine Valley in French hands—exclusively French as regards the territory west of the Rhine and extensive bridgeheads east of the Rhine covering approximately the same' areas that similar bridgeheads covered during the Allies' occupation after the First World War. What de Gaulle Wants Those bridgeheads embraced Cologne, Coblenz and Mainz. This time General de Gaulle desires French occupation from the Swiss to the Netherlands frontiers. The French say frankly that they do not expect either the Americans or the British to take an' active interest in this occupation for long, and hence the French must stand guard in this strategic zone. The French stand is that the Ruhr should be organised according to French economic needs and France's position in Europe. They want the Ruhr's production to serve French and European reconstruction. Most of the Saar will be annexed by France if General de Gaulle has his way. The Ruhr zone would include the region around Dortmund, Bochurn and Gelsenkirchen forming the Westphalian coal basin, Here would be an inter■ national economic regime excluding all German ownership. The French would participate to the greatest extent, but the Belgians and the Netherlander would be, represented The French say that thus there might he different political regimes in the international and the French nones Creating New Frontiers The French fear British rather than American opposition to this plan. They think that the American interest is less direct and the Americans favour a harder peace than the British, whom the French suspect of coolness toward General de Gaulle's idea of a predominant role for France in the Rhineland and hence in Western Europe. Belgian antagonism toward General de Gaulle is regarded here in France as a reflection of the British attitude. Experts ask whether an international j regime is equally applicable in the in- ; dustrial region of Upper Silesia, which 1 is in Russia's orbit. But they add that all this separatism and zoning involve breaking up Germany and creating new frontiers such as have in the past been barriers to trade and stimulants to aggressive nationalism.

j NEW TEXTILE CENTRE i HUGE BLOCK OF BUILDINGS If certain plans mature, London will have a new centre for Britain's textile trade in the heart of the city. It will consist of a huge block of buildings to be raised on the blitzed site between Cheapside and Moorfields, states the Daily Telegraph. ■ Actual textile manufacture in Britain is, of course, carried on "in the North —cotton in Lancashire and woollens in Yorkshire. But the wholesale trade is mainly near St. Paul's, in London. Germany had an immense textile trade, and Poland's clothing manufac- * ture, centred in the great town of Lodz, was considerable. France and Italy led the way in many kinds of silk and rayon production. Japan swamped the world with cheap silks and cheaper cottons. But with all this competition Britain has remained supreme in textile production, her high standards undiminished, her invention fresh and lively. Hundreds of important textile firms lost their offices when the Luftwaffe rained down its bombs around St. Paul's. They are now scattered far and wide, but in a sense they were scattered before the bombing, for many of the office buildings were old-fashioned, cramped and unsuitable for swift and convenient trade communication. In a single central block on their traditional ground, specially designed for the needs of their commerce, the textile firms of Britain may weU establish a world trade centre.

MAPS FOR AIRMEN , CANADA'S FROZEN WASTES At the beginning of the war there were parts of Canada of which no accurate maps existed, for Canada is a vast country and a large area of the north of it consists of frozen and uninhabited wilderness, states the Toronto Star. In the past there was no incentive to map these desolate regions, for no one wished to travel there, but nowadays airmen, for war purposes, have to fly over them, and they need accurate maps. Since the war the Canadian Resources Department Hydrographic and Maps Service has undertakes an intensive drive to provide maps of little-known territories for the use of Allied airmen. These maps were often required at short notice, and the work was not easy to carry out. To produce quickly a map of some remote Arctic island, a surveyor with an array of instruments, a wireless set and a week's provisions had to be taken to the island by plane and left there. The enormous task_ has been accomplished, and now an airman can fly over most of the great land mass of Canada, from the United States frontier to the eternal ice, with the aid of an accurate map.

PLAN COSTING £2,000,000 Whole streets, factories and blocks of houses are marked down for inclusion in a £'2,000,000 scheme to make Mascot, a few miles out of Sydney, Australia's most modern airport. It is proposed practically to reconstruct tlie airport, increase its area nearly threefold, and provide new sites for administrative buildings, workshops, and hangars. In the process, an ugly neighbouring canal ana swamps will he filled in. The proposed new runways, more than double the length of the longest existing strips at Mascot, will take the world's largest planes fully loaded. Included in the plans also are passenger lounges, cafes, restaurants and all the other amenities of an airport which it is proposed so to modernise as to he able to deal with international and all other forms of air traffic, both passenger and freight. BRITISH AGRICULTURE Britain is now producing more than two-thirds of her food from her own soil. This amazing performance of British farmers and farm-workers was mentioned by Mr Tom Williams, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, in a recent talk. Mr Williams said also that agriculture in Britain provides a living for oyer a million families, and that the value of agricultural output has been more than doubled during the war years.