FEELING AGAINST BRITISH RISING

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5297, 9 January 1947, Page 3

FEELING AGAINST BRITISH RISING

RUHR DISTRICT ONGE "KEY STONE OF' EUROPE" NOW VAST KUIN SOLINGEN'-OHLIGS, Ruhr •S:o often have the Germana used 1 the term "Alles Kapt!" (All is finished) that an unsuspectlng newcomer is reported to have asked: "Say, who is this Alice Kaput?" writes Neville Smith in the Melbourne Argus. But of all the Germany that is "kaput" the most "kaput" is that industrially phenomenal area in the north-west lcnown as the Ruhr. It is not a very large territory, . stretching some 50 miles north oi' Cologne, east of the R'hine and about the sarae d'istance across, hut it is fabulously t'ich in eoal, natural resources, communieations, and industrial potential. Before Adolph Hitler j put Germany to the arbitratment of fate and his intuitin it was a teeming land of busy 'industrial cities, huge plants, grimy smokestacks, railways, canals ard small farms cultivated right up to the factory walls. it was called the "Keystone of Europe." To-day it is one vast ruin. The eoal is still there; so are the farms and the canals, but the cities are masses of rubble and skeleton buildings, the plants are tangles of twisted girders and wrecked machincry, and the railways things oi patehwork repairs, along which run j decrepit trains. People are hungry and cold, resentment against the British is rising and not nearly cnc.'jgh work is beir.g done. It is true that cage-wheels are spinning- in some of the mine heads. plunies of smoke and steam are rising from occasional hlast furnaces, and workshops are turning out goods, but appearances are deceptive. The Siahr is but a shadow oi its former -°if. Depressing Experience To travel through A ks a depressing experience. liere in Ohligs things are not so bad, bnt Ohligs is a small towu. In neighbouring* Solingen, a tiam ride away, they got v/hat my British car-driver calls "a proper clouting." But it is farther north that the real horror ic seen. Dusseldorf is good enough in paris to be Ruhr headquarters of the Control Commission (in the town hall). Mulheim, Oberhausen, Essen, Bochum, so closely situated that they seem almc«t like one city, are just wrecks. In Dortmund the dcbris in parts still smells of decaying bodies. I have heard it said that some of the damage was unnecssary, becau.se the E.ihr was immobiliscd through the destruction of communieations long* before the war ended, but probably the Allies went on the sound principle that it was better to fce sure than sorry. Certainly they made a thorough job of Krupps', in Essen. cS Krupps' deserves special mention. The destruction of the enormous series of plants (once employing 170,000 men) is awe-inspiring, but they have eleared 70,00*0 tons of rubble out of or.e series of shops. Here British engineers are supervising the repair of German locomo^ives for the coenry's parlous tranport system, the making of certain kinds of miners' tools, and, ctriously, the production of metal artificial dcntures. The firm oi Krupps' to to be disintegrated, the ruins razed, and the property sokl to less dangerous owners. "But there vvill always be engineering works here,' said oue British offieial to me. "Krupps' was Essen ar,,'. Essen Krupps', and if you shifted the whole population 'away to-mor-row they would drift hack again in two or three years. "The natural advantages of this situation, the accessibility, and the skill of the workers after generations in the industry make conditions i-cleal for engineeving production." Some of the machinery has becn salvaged and stored under cover, but it will not go to the purchascrs. A lot is destined for the Russians, if they can move it. Bleak Future

Dortmund is fating a bleak future through ihe closing down oi two of its chief indusrries for dismantling, and as I write there is an outcry in Britain about it, partly because Mr. Victor Gollancz has hinted that the closing has been hurried by pressure from business competitors of "another Ally," and partly because it will deprive the British Zone of fertilisers, hadly needed, and soda ash. But the real problem of the Ruhr is coal production. As in Australia, Britain, the U.S.A. the miners are not producing enough coal, and without coal fev; steps toward recovery can be made. German city streets are unlit at night, the Berlin underground works at 'only 20 per cent. of its capacity, the shortage of consumer goods oontinues, transport is lagging, all because of the shortage of coal. As elsewhere, the miners are an age'ing race, and it is difficult to encourage new men into the industry. When it was sug-gested that Nazi criminals be sent to work in the coalmines the miners hotly resentcd it as a slur ion their industry. PoliLically, indeed, t^e workmg miners are conservative and have considerable excliusiveness. The Communist Party is very active in the Ruhr — it daubs slogan's 'on vacant walls and hoardings in the manner coramon to non-Russian "Commos" everywhere — but it has never been a'ble to make 'the m'iners vote C9111munist. I beieve that the Nazis also found them unimpressed'. Miners Well Fed The working niiner -is the toest fed German in the land. He xeceives 4000 calories a day in his mine canteen, in. contrast to 1550 calories fpr other Germans, hut ihe still comi plains that he does not get enough to

eat. Worried British Control officials turn 'out reams of reports about the situation, but they have not succeeded in improving it. Suggestions have included: Better housing and living conditions, better facilities in the mines ancl at the mineheads, and improved rations for miners' families. One g-reat encouragement toward bigger production would be to provide more eonsiumer goods for the miner to spend his hard-earned marks 011 , but you cannot have consumer goods without coal, and you cannot have coal without consumer goods And so the vicious circle goes on. But supposing the coal problem coul'd be solved, what would be the j future of the Ruhr Estimates vary . as to how long it would take to get it back to reasonably working order. British officials say Cive years: French, experts from the Lille district say that it could be done in two. Much would depend on the strength and willingness of the German worker. At present he is undeniably below par. There are many stories about the designs of "sinster financial _ interests" 011 the Ruhr potential and of international intrigue, but I have been getting my • inf ormation from other sources than Phillips Oppenheim and the Daily ' Wjorker, and will have to leave the unravelling of that side of the question • to him. As a p.urely personal guess, I would say that a .Socialist Britain, a Communis't Russia, and a presumably democratic Germany will sce to it that international cartels ancl dynasties of death do n:ot -g'et too far I again with their dirty" work.