America's Germany
The contrast between French and United States views in respect to Germany is made clear by the American declaration of policy which has been handed to the British, Russian and French Govern-
ments. The United States envisages a reformed Germany with an industrial equipment sufficient to ensure her a standard of life equal to • the European average in 1948, with a population of 66,000,000 as compared with 67,000,000 before the annexation of Austria, and including th= Ruhr, Saar and Rhineland within her frontiers. No similar declaration of intentions has as yet been made by any of the other powers ; the United States is to be congratulated at least on having set herself a clear objective. Even apart from the French, however, to whom the inclusion of the Ruhr and Saar in the .new Germany will be distasteful, the other Allies will have important qualifications to make if the American policy is to be acceptable to them. They will probably concur in the long-term objective of wanting a Germany capable of standing on her own feet. They may well have doubts, however, over the speed at which this objective is to be reached. For the American declaration envisages that by 195o Germany will have resumed control of her economic and industrial affairs and will have achieved a large degree of independence in government and administration. The corollary is, of course, that over a very wide field Allied control will have been withdrawn. The European Powers who are most vitally interested in Germany's future may well ask themselves what guarantees there will be, under these circumstances, that Germany by 1950 will be incapable of playing an independent role in European politics, and, even more important, what evidence there is that in the four years before 1950 the hearts and minds of Germans will be so changed that they can safely be given even a limited freedom of action.
