Signs Within Germany Emphasise Obstacles In The Way

Wanganui Chronicle, 31 May 1949, Page 5

Signs Within Germany Emphasise Obstacles In The Way

LONDON, May 30 (Rec. 8 p.m.)— “While the Western Powers are playing their highest card in Paris, putting before Mr. Vyshinsky their terms for restoring full unity of Germany, news from Berlin and elsewhere demonstrates how great are the obstacles in the way of the unity,” says the “Times” in a leader. ' “Even if Mr. Vyshinsky offers to discuss the plans he must be expected to bring forward amendments designed to ensure the German Socialist Unity Party’s continued hold over the Eastern Z|ne, and the basis for any four-Power understanding on full unity would then collapse. Failing agreement on complete unity the four Foreign Ministers will presumably strive to arrange a loose economics agreement between the Eastern and Western parts of Germany. “Any easy hopes that the lifting of the Berlin blockade would allow per-

sons and goods to pass freely across the zonal boundary between the east and west have vanished. The course of the struggle depends on Soviet willingness to come to a larger agreement to enable trade to develop the two parts of Germany—an agreement into which a unified Berlin could fit. “In spite of recent obstructions there are some few encouraging signs in the background. The poor economic conditions of the Eastern Zone have at times been exaggerated but there is no doubt that it needs manufactured goods, which only Western Germany can at present supply. Mr. Vyshinsky’s insistence on using the two economic organisations as a link between the two halves of Germany and the evident Soviet intention to control the kind of goods entering their zone seem to show that the Soviet Government has in mind a limited economic agreement.”