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Foreign Affairs
HOUSE OF COMMONS
[MR. PIRATIN.]
The present Minister of Commonwealth Relations answered:
"Yes, Sir. I am very glad to give that assurance." [OFFICIAL Report, 1946; Vol. 426, c. 499.]
29th July,
And "The Times" leader of 9th October this year, just two months ago, said :
"Little has been done by the occupying Powers to alter the basic pattern of society in Western Germany, or to weaken seriously the ruling groups which first welcomed, then served, and only at the last moment turned against Hitler. Coal and steel have not been nationalised; the Civil Service and adminis- The tration are in many cases unaltered. uncontrolled economic policy which is at present being carried through has, among its various consequences, also hastened the return to normal' and further weakened the power of the workers."
Therefore, it is "The Times" which calls the Government to book for having done nothing at all to carry out the promise contained in that Question and answer to which I have referred. In fact, the power of big business has been restored. "The Economist of 2nd October said this:
In every way the German leaders are, very naturally, trying to build up the strongest pos- sible position for their country in the future world. Viewed from the depths at which they began three years ago, their success has already been considerable."
German capitalists have also been suc- cessful and are succeeding in stopping the dismantling. Hon. Members may have different views on that, but no one is under any illusions as to what the French think about that question.
Mr. Stokes: They want to stop it, too.
Mr. Piratin: Therefore, it is a matter for our consideration. Take the ques- tion of shipping. "The Times" of 13th November mentioned that the United States authorities have declared that Ger- man shipyards should be re-opened and should build merchant ships. I ask the Under-Secretary of State to say whether this is true or not, for it is a fact that a shipbuilding contract, placed with а Sunderland firm by Norway, has been cancelled, and this contract has now gone to a German yard at Kiel. If it is a fact, will the Under-Secretary say whether it is with the endorsement of the Govern- ment that this action has been taken?
Further, while capitalism has been strengthened in the Western zone of
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Mr. Stokes: It is not true.
Mr. Piratin: On 8th November, the Minister was asked a Question with re- gard to the index of prices of various commodities, and he replied that "foot- wear had gone up 55 per cent. and clothing had gone up 25 per cent. since April, while the hourly wage increase in the same period had been only between 4 per cent. and 6 per cent." It was then claimed by the hon. Member for Luton, who raised the matter, that in his opinion and in the opinion of other observers, these differences were much sharper than those acknowledged by the Minister, and the Minister actually then used the word “ approximately.”
Therefore, I put these points: what have the Government achieved in the Western zone of Germany, where they can put no blame upon Russia and where we have to ask ourselves what part we have been taking? In the first place, big business has been re-established and the cost of living has gone up. The Under- Secretary of State is well aware of the feeling in the Western zone of Germany and Bizonia, where only a few weeks ago 10 million workers came out on strike, including 4 million in the British part. Those workers did not come out because of Cominform instructions, as has been said about miners in France; they came out because they were hungry and be- cause the wages they were receiving were not sufficient to supply their elementary needs.
The
Secondly, we have upset France. French have a different attitude to Ger- many from ours. The right hon. Member for Woodford made that point, and every one is aware of it. Both immediately and in our long-term policy we have fallen out with our former and present French Allies. So far as the imme- diate aspects are concerned, the hon. Member for West Coventry (Mr. Edelman) referred to coking coal which used to go to France in abundance for the French to make steel. It no longer goes to France, or very little goes, and as a result French steel production is not rising, while we are told by the Foreign Secretary that German steel production is rising.
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Foreign Affairs 10 DECEMBER 1948 Or. Haden Guest (Islington, North): show that Germany is not an isolated From nothing?
instance. Is it not a fact that miners in the Ruhr are receiving only the equivalent of Is. 51d. an hour? Obviously, on that basis, they can easily compete with coal from Britain or elsewhere. That rate of wages, however, is endorsed by the authorities, and those authorities America and Britain. We are building up, therefore, a competitor for ourselves on absolutely unequal terms.
Mr. Piratin: Yes, from nothing. German steel production is going up at the risk of that of France going down. The production of coal is vital to so many things that if there is only a limited quan- tity for coking purposes the economic advisers in bizonia must decide how much shall go to France and how much shall remain in Germany for steel making. The answer is clear from the fact that German steel production is in- creasing while that of France is not.
Mr. Stokes: Is the hon. Member aware that the whole policy is framed so that, once German coal production is really increasing, coking coal shall be sent to Lorraine instead of Lorraine iron ore being sent to the Ruhr? That is established already.
Mr. Piratin: That is what the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) says. It is in contradiction to what was said by the hon. Member for West Coventry (Mr. Edelman) a few minutes earlier.
Mr. Edelman: May I comment on that? Although that is part of the Ruhr agreement in principle, my reservation about it is that there is not yet sufficient authority to make sure that that will, in fact, take place.
Mr. Piratin: The immediate effect of our policy is that, on a long-term basis, France will suffer. We know that this very difficult problem of the control of the Ruhr is one about which France feels more strongly than any other country could feel. That is only reasonable, for France has been affected three times in the past 70 years because of its proximity to Germany.
I now come to my third point. We are building up Germany, amongst other ways, to compete with us in exports. Questions have been asked, notably by Conservative Members-they are quite entitled to state their views-about the building up of Japan and its competition with us in world markets. We must agree that every country shall be free to com- pete, providing that the conditions in those countries are fair to the people who produce the goods. We cannot directly affect an independent country, but in Germany we do possess a certain degree of control. I mentioned Japan only to
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Fourth, we have fallen out with the Soviet Union. It may be claimed that we have fallen out with the Soviet Union on many things. In this case, however, the Soviet Union is entitled to judge us by the way we are acting in the Western zone of Germany, where, apparently, we have power to carry on our policy irres- pective of the speeches which are made by Government spokesmen. Fifth, this policy in Germany is one further indica- tion of the domination by the United States in seeking to establish in Germany powerful industry and in order to ensure a reactionary Government based on a
that they have an advance base for any war plans which they contemplate.
If I have been one-sided let hon. Mem- bers say so, but I have tried to be fair in my conclusions, because I have not heard one hon. Gentleman on this side of the House say anything very favour- able about conditions in Germany dur- ing recent months. Therefore, we ought to look at the way we are conducting our affairs to see whether it has any bearing on the international situation. I think we shall rue the day that we initiated this policy in Germany. Its sad effect cannot
be blamed on to Russia. We must take responsibility for it ourselves.
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Is it too late to change this policy of building and maintaining a reactionary Government in Germany-as we doing elsewhere, in, for example, Greece? Our country is the key to peace. We all know that the United States is in many senses a much more powerful country. We know, too, that the other one of the three great Powers-the Soviet Union- is also a powerful country. The strange thing is that our country is to the key to world peace. If we were to say that we were striving and acting in a way that would ensure the maintenance of world peace, no side could go to war. Military strategists in America have always de- clared that in Europe there are only two