UNITY OF GERMANY

Wanganui Chronicle, 1 July 1948, Page 4

UNITY OF GERMANY

' I 'HE aim of the West is to rehabilitate Germany as a nation. This aim is not shared by the Soviet Union and as that Powei will not co-operate it became necessary for the six Powers ’inmediately concerned with the Western Zone to work out a scheme ioi the part of Germany under their jurisdiction. The objective is to bring the German people themselves into the scheme of government so that they may contribute to an increasing degree to the working out of their own salvation. The new Gel ernment must have a strong central authority to control the whole area over which it has jurisdiction but the constitution provides that the federal form shall be adopted adequately respect ing the rights of the respective States and also the freedoms and rights of the individual are to be fully guaranteed. M hen this provisional Government is set up an international authority composed of representatives of the U.S.A, the United KingGom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and Germany will be organised. This international authority will take decisions by a majority vote and will make division of the coal, coke and steel from the Ruhr as between German consumption and export, taking into account the essential needs of Germany. This machinery for dividing the output of the Ruhr between Germany and the other western nations is designed to co-ordin-ate Germany with the larger plan for the western division of Europe. Such a step in international eo-ordination which does not include Russia is of itself bad in Soviet eyes. It does not matter to what extent it will convey benefits to peoples far and wide, what does matter is that it will speed the recovery of the west at a time when the recovery of the Soviet-controlled portion of Europe is making no headway at all and is, in faet, a regressive movement. , i It was in the furtherance of the co-ordination scheme and the setting up of the provisional Government that the currency was put on a sound base. If the currency rectification could be crushed then the whole of the effort being made m the west would have been subjected to the most severe handicap. Indeed, it might well have been wrecked. Hence the tears of the Russians, the hastily convened conference at Warsaw and the proclamation of a political move—on the customary Soviet pattern—for Eastern Germany.