London Newspapers Welcome Big Three Policy Statement

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27391, 17 May 1950, Page 7

London Newspapers Welcome Big Three Policy Statement

NZPA—Copyright LONDON, May 15.

The communique issued by the Big Three Foreign Ministers has the ring of confidence of real agreement which encourages some optimism, says The Times in an editorial. “ Coming after the proposal by the French Foreign Minister, M. Robert Schuman, for a European industry merger and the German Government’s decision to join the Council of Europe, it made last week a week of hope and of promise for the Western world,” says the paper. Referring to the policy towards Germany, The Times says the decision that supreme authority must remain in Allied hands while Germany remains divided is a sensible statement of policy, although it may not arouse great enthusiasm in Germany. “It may appear disappointing to those Germans who expected a peace treaty, the restoration of full sovereignty, or control of their foreign policy,” the paper adds. The Daily Mail says that one

outstanding: service has been made by the Foreign Ministers. “They have at last placed the crucial issues of the day starkly before the people,” it states. “ There will be a third world war, perhaps in three or four years, if the decisions now taken are wrong, or are not carried through. If the Ministers are right in their judgments and actions, we may hope for a long peace. “ really matters is that the Western countries should join together and work together to face years of war which is not a' real war, a peace which is not a true peace. If they exert a common effort to thwart the common danger the perils ahead will be triumphantly surmounted.” Most of the morning papers in London today splashed the Big Three declaration on Germany under banner headlines on the front page. The only adverse comment came from the Communist Daily Worker, which claimed that the British Foreign Minister, Mr Ernest Bevin, in effect, had “ torn up ” Britain’s 24 year treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union. “New Deal” For Germany Other papers welcomed the declaration, agreeing that it offered Germany a new deal and showed the West’s determination to strengthen Western Germany as the main bulwark against further Communist encroachment in Europe. They emphasised that it depended on the Germans themselves how rapidly the character of the allied occupation could be transformed. In Germany the independent newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau says that the results of the conference initiated “ revolutionary policy compared with all previous western views about international relations. Like Hitler once, Stalin is now faced with a stop sign reading: ‘Up to here, and no farther.’ Seldom has a conference ended with so much agreement as the one in London. Never before has the West laid down such energetic long-range directives of common policy.”