RUSSIAN POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26621, 18 November 1947, Page 5

RUSSIAN POLICY

A DIVIDED GERMANY DISASTROUS TO EUROPE FOREIGN MINISTERS' PROBLEM Rec. 9.50 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 17, The forthcoming Foreign Ministers’ meeting in London on Germany’s future may prove the last chance to ‘ prevent the fatal protracted division of Europe, says the Daily Herald in a leader. Formal agreement was reached at Potsdam that—after a period of occupation, disarmament and reparations—political and economic unity must be restored to a democratic Germany. Britain has made perhaps too great sacrifices to that aim. We, in the hope that agreement could be reached on those lines with all Powers, including Russia, continued for two years to supply food and dollars to the British zone in Germany which has ibeen inevitably pauperised by division from the east The truth is that Russian determination to divide Germany economically has made it impossible to carry out the original Potsdam plan, turned Germany into an industrial slum and grievously impoverished Europe. It' the Russians at the Foreign Ministers’ conference show they intend to continue in the tragically blind, disastrous policy, the Western Powers will be compelled in sheer economic defence to accept Germany’s division as a fact and organise the Western zones’ resources in the interest of European recovery.