NEGOTIATIONS AS TO EUROPE’S STEEL AND COAL; CRISIS CAUSED

Wanganui Chronicle, 3 June 1950, Page 5

NEGOTIATIONS AS TO EUROPE’S STEEL AND COAL; CRISIS CAUSED

LONDON, June 2 (Recd 6 pm).—A first cia* crisis has been precipitated by France's reply to the latest British note on conditions under which Mr. Attlee’s Government would take part in the proposed negotiations for the European coal and steel pool, says Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent. The French Note, delivered to the Ambassador, Sir Oliver Harvey, in Paris last night, was at once despatched to London, where it formed thr subject of a series of late night conferences. France’s reply is understood to been communicated immediately to the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Ernest Bev in, now in a London clinic wating to undergo an operation. It also is being studied by Mr Kenneth Younger, Minister of State, and the Foreign Office chiefs concerned with the heavy industry pool plan recently put forward by the French Foreign Minister, Mr. Schuman. In London diplomatic quarters it is understood a British Note delivered in Paris yeste: day morning proposed an alternate c declaration to be made by th- Brits’n Government, but that this still did not meet French requirements. In view of this the French Government replied last, night with a Note announcing a decision to go ahead tc-aay on the basis of the declaration already agreed with West Germany. Belgium. Holland, Luxembourg ami Italy