13 MAY 1955, Page 5

T HE week's news has been largely devoted to peace abroad

and polemic at home. In the international sphere last week's restoration of German sovereignty was followed last Tuesday by a simple ceremony in which the red. black and yellow flag of the West German Republic was form- ally raised at NATO Headquarters at Versailles to the accom- paniment of music by the Band of the 4th Hussars, who rather Improbably happened to be in France to assist at the Joan of Arc anniversary celebrations at Orleans, and in the presence of General Speidel and other German and Allied officers. At a luncheon in Paris, Dr. Adenauer, the Federal Chancellor, denied that there was any ambiguity in Germany's attitude as between East and West, but Herr 011enhauer, leader of the German Social Democrats, has been insisting that the problem of German reunification must be tackled.

French reactions to the restoration of German sovereignty have not been too happy: M. Claude Bourdet, the Editor of L'Observateur, remarking the unhappy coincidence by which this event took place ten years after VE Day, has sent all his medals but one back to the President of the Republic as a gesture of protest, the one being the Croix de Liberation, which, so he said, he is keeping because he knows that General de Gaulle has been opposed to present policy towards Germany.

TALKS AT THE TOP

Germany must have been much in the minds of the Western Foreign Ministers, who met in Paris this week to decide upon their attitude towards Four-Power talks with the Soviet Union. The principal difference of opinion was on the question of whether or not the talks were to take place at the highest level. Diplomatic and Washington correspondents have been as agitated as fleas on a hot plate, pouring out a flood of pessi- mistic forecasts about the American attitude. On Monday The Times. headline was still 'US Resist British Plan for Heads of Governments.' so that news that Marshal Bulganin had been invited to a 'two stage' meeting with the' American President and Western Prime Ministers came, if not as a surprise, at any rate as a relief to opinion in Western Europe. The intention is to hold a short meeting of Heads of Governments followed by a longer one of Foreign Ministers, since President Eisenhower— in spite of his expressed willingness to 'meet with anyone, any- where' in the interests of world peace, can obviously not be absent from Washington for any length of time. The time and Place of the meeting may be decided when the Western and Soviet Foreign Ministers meet in Vienna next Sunday for the signing of an Austrian Treaty. This treaty will bring to a close the Allied occupation of Austria and is another symptom of the better atmosphere in worla 'affairs, which caused Le Monde this week to announce 'The Détente Confirmed.' where the forces controlled by M. Ngo Dinh Diem, the Prime Minister, have succeeded in forcing the surrender of the last troops of the Binh Xuyen sect in Saigon. American and French differences over Viet Nam were made clear by 'French support for the return of Bao Dai, the Head of State of Southern Viet Nam, to Saigon, which was described by M. Diem as an attempt by Bao Dai to save his friends of the Binh Xuyen. M. Diem. who enjoys American support, has rehashed his Government this week, but nothing is yet known about the political affilia- tions of the new Ministers. British intervention in this sphere has been limited to a note delivered in Moscow expressing con- cern about the slow movement of refugees from Northern to Southern Viet Nam and suggesting an extension of the time limit set in the Geneva Agreement as to Formosa and the rela- tions between Communist China and the US.

PRELIMINARIES IN PEKING

Mr. Nehru's adviser on foreign policy, the British Minister, Mr. Humphrey Trevelyan, has asked for a clarification of Mr. Chou En-lai's statement at the Bandoeng Conference that China would be willing to negotiate an agreement on Formosa with the USA, and Mr Krishna Menon has also gone to Peking to try to persuade the Chinese that delay would be dangerous to world peace. How explosive the atmosphere still is is shown by the clash between American and Chinese aircraft over the international waters near North Korea which ended in the destruction of two MiGs.

Agreements in the face of danger, but the dangers continue. As the invitations to Four-Power talks were issued, the Soviet Union was calling a conference of its satellites in Warsaw to form what has been called an 'Eastern NATO,' and the Supreme Soviet last week annulled the treaties of alliance between Russia on the one hand and France and Britain on the other. A grim note was set in the latest atomic bomb test in Nevada, which, though impressing The Times correspondent by its beauty, is likely to arouse rather different emotions among the inhabitants of the 'ordinary American homes' that were tested for their power of resistance. It was found that it is a bad thing. to live in a wooden house anywhere near an explosion !quivalent to 35,000 tons of TNT.

Elsewhere in the world there is also trouble. As if Pakistan had not enough on her plate already with her quarrel with Afghanistan (leading last week to Afghan mobilisation), a frontier incident in Kashmir, where twelve Indians and three Pakistanis were killed, has increased tension between her and India. It can only be a minor consolation that the Supreme Court has confirmed the Governor-General's authority to dis- solve the Constituent Assembly. In the Argentine the leaders of Catholic action have been arrested following their resistance to laws separating Church and State, while Britain is taking her dispute with Argentina and Chile over Antarctic dependencies to the Hague Court.,

DYNAMITE FOR ENOSIS

In Cyprus (just to show that colonial troubles are still with us) the men caught importing dynamite into the country (for the good of the Ettosis party) have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment, while the great Lukiko of the Buganda has demanded once again the return of the Kabaka and gone on record as being for the reforms suggested in the Hancock report and against multi-racial government (whatever that may mean). French North Africa furnishes the usual crop of assassinations diversified in Tunisia by the frenzied protests of the settlers against the agreement reached with the Tunisian nationalists. In France itself the main event has been M. Mendes-France's success in capturing the Party machine at a rowdy and mobile Radical congress. In Italy the position of Signor Scelba seems a little rocky, and he is reported as intending to resign.

At home peaceful international congresses are replaced by an almost equally peaceful election campaign. The emphasis placed on peaceful solutions of international problems in the Queen's speech dissolving Parliament shows that the Conserva- tives have no intention of being caught by any war-mongering scare this time, and Sir Anthony Eden's tour through Yorkshire and Saturday night broadcast underlined this motif. 'First a deterrent to prevent aggression; then disarmament to make it impossible.' announced a programme with which few people can differ, and the respect with which the Manchester Guardian reported he was received in Yorkshire owed a great deal to his reputation as a peace-maker.

But there has been little excitement in spite of the encourage- ment which the Conservatives must have received from the latest Gallup poll (which showed them as having increased their lead over Labour by 21- per cent.) and the local elections (where they have gained 44 seal). Even Mr. Aneurin Bevan has so far aroused little wrath or interest. Poor Mr. Bevan ! He is con- stantly being misunderstood. Last week he was complaining that, if he said that Tories followed their leaders like sheep, he was accused of calling them sheep. How unfortunate that everyone has not his clear understanding of the fine distinction between simile and symbol ! The Liberals have now issued their manifesto, which is only remarkable for being slightly less enthusiastic about free trade than usual. Lord Samuel has delivered himself of a solemn warning about the effects of Socialism on the economy of the country, but perhaps this piece of artillery is too ponderous for the Conservatives to employ to answer Lady Megan's quick-firing attacks. The poll- sters are happy in their work of conjuring with cube laws, and the BBC has hired Deuce, the mechanical brain (for want of real ones?), to calculate the election results as they come in.

Otherwise the week's home news is of strikes. The Yorkshire miners have been out-87,000 of them—over a matter of differentials, which had already been settled to their union's satisfaction. The NUM has been trying to get them back to work and there have been dark stories of agitators in taxis whizzing from pit to pit at 4 a.m. in the morning forestalling the efforts of union officials. On Sunday fifteen pits voted to return to work, but on Monday there was an inter-union row in Lancashire that stopped work there. This is now settled. but the Yorkshire strike still goes on, and the amount of coal lost runs into hundreds of thousands of tons. Liverpool tugboat men are also on a strike which has paralysed the Merseyside ports, and at the time of writing there is a threat of a dock strike due to the dispute between the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers' Union and the Transport and General Workers, from which some dockers broke away last year to join the NASD. Mr. Tom O'Brien, ex-chairman of the TUC, has warned trades unionists against the threat to the unions of unofficial strikes.

General items of news this week include the postponement of inoculations with the Salk vaccine for poliomyelitis, while further tests are made, the winning of the Kentucky Derby by a horse called Swaps and of the Cup Final by Newcastle United by three goals to Manchester City's one. More poignant is the departure of Johnnie Ray for USA mourned by a thousand bobby-soxers. However, Londoners may take heart; they have exchanged him for Mr. Raymond Chandler who is now in our midst. The week's most unexpected piece of news is that Worcestershire has beaten the South Africans by 117 runs and the most banal that the National Film Finance Corporation has a deficit of £3.780,515.