YALTA AGREEMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26416, 21 March 1947, Page 5

YALTA AGREEMENT

NO LONGER OPERATIVE SUPERSESSION BY POTSDAM WESTERN POWERS INSISTENT MOSCOW, Mar. 19. Mr Molotov revealed to-day that Russia had not only taken reparations from the Russian zone of Germany, but also had transferred German factories in the zone to Russian ownership. He told the meeting of Foreign Ministers that the factories, although Russian owned, were subject to German law. He apparently referred to the Russian combine comprising 200 factories in Eastern Germany. The Russians had previously declined to give any information about the ownership of these factories. Mr Molotov also stated that the Russians had taken reparations in the form of factory removals and from current production. Russian Plan Rejected Mr Bevin, in calm commentary of Mr Molotov’s programme for Germany, rejected Russia’s reparations demand. He said, first, that Britain would not agree to putting a dollar valuation on reparations. He also stated that the Ruhr was in the British zone, and would remain there until there was economic unity in Germany and fourpower control of German industries. Mr Bevin, in support of his argument against taking Yalta as the guide to the reparations, programme, produced a copy of a telegram Cabinet sent Mr Churchill at Yalta. The telegram said that the total figure of £5,000,000.000 was far too great, and instructed Mr Churchill to remember the need for leaving Germany sufficient resources to pay for her imports. Mr Bevin added that Generalissimo Stalin himself had urged the Allies to agree that reparations should come from capital goods, apd particularly the factories in the western zones. Demand on Russian Zone Mr Molotov said he could not accept Mr Bevin’s and Mr Marshall’s viewpoint that Potsdam superseded the Yalta decision on reparations. Russia had received only £1,250,000 in capital reparation from the western zones, and therefore had been forced to take substantial reparations from her own zone. The figures for this would be available at the appropriate time. It would be a crime in the eyes of the Russian people if Russia did not take such reparations. Mr Bevin opposed the Russian proposal for the reparations programme from current production spread over 20 years; and also rejected the Russian demand for annulment of the Anglo-American zone fusion. Mr Bevin said the Russian idea for the level of German industry was close to Britain’s, but he could not agree with Mr Molotov’s stipulation that the level of industry should be related to reparations from current production. Intolerable Burden Opposed Mr Marshall said that Germany, after 1918, had managed to make war material because the Allies sought to rebuild her industries to get reparations. America was prepared to consider a proposal to raise the level of industry. It believed that no reparations programme should be adopted if it meant that the Germans would be so burdened that no democratic Government could survive. 'Mr Marshall agreed that reconciliation was possible between the views of the four Ministers, in spite of the difficulty about reparations. He approved of the idea of fixing a definite term for reparations payments. The recipients were entitled to know what, they would receive, and when; and Germany must know what resources were to be left her.